A Heart for a King
by atheistbasementdragon
Summary: Taking place ten years after the Synod, immediately following 'Kingship, Cooking, & Companionship'. The magic research of Nazarick is bearing fruit, the ability to create an item that will let Ainz change back and forth between races seems within grasp... but even with a luck stat as high as his, not 'everything' necessarily goes as planned, and sometimes that is for the best.
1. The Man who Was

A Heart for a King

Chapter 1: A Heart from Forgiveness

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

**AN: This has been a commissioned multichapter piece, the events in this story take place after Kingship, Cooking, and Companionship.**

**I leave it to you the reader to decide if this is 'canon' or not for now. I'll know better myself when I see how it comes out. :) For now, enjoy.**

_...Nazarick…_

Ainz's return to Nazarick was always a cause for happiness among the guardians and the many permanent residents of the tomb. It had, over time, become a cause for feasting whenever he was gone for any length of time. In this particular instance, the Sorcerer King had been gone for a full week, seeing to negotiations and instructions on expanding trade ties between the lands he ruled, including the newly settled region discovered off the western coast by some of the first expeditions to venture out into the unknown.

The Sorcerer King, for his part in all this, insisted that if they wished to feast and celebrate his return, then they do so by taking a day off of work to enjoy themselves, each in turn would give their report to him as to the status of their activities in his absence, and then would join their comrades on the sixth floor.

Of course his departure on this occasion had been objected to by Albedo. "Sire, why do you need to negotiate, just give them orders my love, and if they do not obey perfectly, crush and then replace them."

Ainz struck wise undead pose number two, resting his chin on his skeletal fist and leaning forward in a pose his homeworld called 'The Thinker'. "I believe that would be short sighted Albedo, for four reasons. Firstly because willing obedience always beats forced obedience. Second because it would mean neither I nor they had true faith in the rationale of my ideas, third because there may come a day when I face someone I cannot simply 'crush' and so must keep my negotiating skills sharp… And finally," he could not smile, but there appeared a pleasant aura around him, "because it gives me information about what is going well where, what the strengths and weaknesses of various locations happen to be, so that 'if' I ever have to crush a rebellion, I have already gained advanced insight into weaknesses, given from their own lips."

Albedo had clasped her hands together and her eyes shone like stars, "Oh, my lord! My wonderful lord! How could I have missed your deep insight into all of this?! I'm so proud, so impressed!"

She began to inch closer to him, her wings trembling, and Ainz thought about the hidden reason for his enjoyment in a brief departure. A relief from the fear of disappointing the children of his friends, and… a discomfort with the ever looming possibility of an overabundant interest in trying to reproduce with him on the part of his obsessive guardian overseer.

"Albedo… calm down… don't force me to have you confined again…" Ainz said, sensing her desire rising within.

"Oh, Lord Ainz… please… just…" She began.

"Guardians! She's losing it again!" Ainz shouted, prompting Cocytus and Sebas to tackle the overseer and drag her back as she tried to claw her way over to her master.

Ainz sighed. "Confine her for a day, I suppose I can't fault her, I have been gone for a week, it must have seemed an eternity."

"It was." Aura said with an emphatic nod.

"B-But we hope y-you had fun, L-Lord Ainz." Mare said with an anxious face and an equally anxious voice as the Guardian Overseer was literally dragged away.

"I did actually, over the last ten years my followers outside of Nazarick have grown tremendously in both their quantity and quality. The Governor Queen Draudillon has not descended into a bottle, Vanysa's operations continue to bear fruit and have done much to root out ties to the remnants of Zuranon from the old nobility and the purges are making way for new talent to rise. These visits of mine are heartening demonstrations of the progress and the peace of my rule." Ainz said proudly.

"Speaking of Vanysa," Demiurge said, "When will she be returning? We have each been busy with our projects lately and though she has sent suggestions, it would be ideal to have her present for these experiments."

Ainz gave the archdemon a look that if he'd had he a face of flesh, would have been amused. "If you simply want to see your paramour, you need only ask, I regret having taken her away from you for so long."

Demiurge was not capable of blushing, but the insight of the Sorcerer King caused him a moment of consternation, "My Lord, I would never dream of compromising a mission you have given to anyone, with my own selfish desires!"

Ainz laughed, "Her work is all but finished, at this point she can brief the Governor Queen and let her agents tend the remainder on their own, I'm sure she'd be delighted to return to your side."

"Let it be only as my Lord wills it." Demiurge said, an undertone of contentment in his rich voice.

After the reports were all completed, a few hours later, Demiurge found himself in his office with a gold skinned demoness.

"Hi Demi, good to see you again." She said with a fang filled smile. He smiled in return, before he jumped on her with a lustful gaze and they began to tear into one another.

When they were both finally exhausted, sore, and… healing, the two began to put on a change of clothes that they'd learned through experience it was a good idea to keep handy when they worked together.

"So I understand you're making progress on the morphomantic item?" She asked tentatively as she pulled up a replacement pair of pants.

"Yes," he said as he began to button a white shirt down the middle, "I believe we're ready for a 'successful' human trial."

"Have you been conducting trials from the normal beings like humans, elves, and whatever other criminal elements you get sent this way? I sent you twenty four Zuranon agents in just one month, were they of no use?" She asked unhappily.

"They were, but most of the time they would explode, it would work when I killed them, but there was a limited range they could transform into, and even those who survived, were unable to reproduce with anything."

Vanysa's face fell, "Does that mean… I'll never actually be able to bear a child?"

Demiurge could only shrug. "Yours was a unique case, you changed to a higher being using an item of the Supreme Ones before being raised to life. These new items are more limited, so experiments were necessarily going to end up… messy." He kept his real thoughts from passing over his face.

"You deserve an heir, the notion that I might not be able to give you one…" Vanysa shuddered, "I understand the feelings of Lady Albedo and Lady Shalltear when I think about it."

"Well, that is why we work, that our Lord may have a line that endures forever even if the unthinkable which we shall not name, should come to pass." Demiurge replied.

Vanysa went over to the desk of the archdevil and picked up a piece of paper after she got her shirt on, "Demi, how has Astraka been doing while I've been away?" She asked casually as she read over the document.

Demiurge buckled the belt of his pants and smiled, "He regrets his existence daily, per your request he has not had his manhood mutilated or harmed, nor has he been 'violated' as you say, in accordance with your promise. However that left much we could still do, and it has all been done. Daily he is restored, and daily he begs for the end."

Vanysa smiled with happiness, "Were it not for him, I would still be human, I would never have tasted the sky, nor would I have ever been elevated to be seen in your eyes as I am. Perhaps it is time to give him a chance to end his agony." She said in a winsome voice.

"Are you ready to forgive him?" Demiurge asked in disbelief.

Vanysa set the document down and looked over at the monster she loved. "Tell me something, my wise archdevil, what is forgiveness for?" Her voice was gentle as a babbling brook, so much so that it threw him off.

"I do not understand the question." Demiurge said with a hint of annoyance, as lack of comprehension was not something he was accustomed to.

She smiled, "Let's walk and talk, the items we need are already waiting for us?"

"They are." He replied.

"Good." She said, and strode to the door with her hands behind the small of her back, her wings still trembling in the afterglow of physical release.

When they were on the way down the hall, she elaborated, "If I forgive him, I may give him the release of death, and that 'seems' on the surface at least, like I'm doing 'him' a favor, doesn't it?" She asked.

"It does." He replied firmly and with clear displeasure at the notion of giving Astraka such a gift.

"But what if I were to tell you, my precious archdevil," she skipped a few paces ahead of him and put her body in front of his, before beginning to walk backwards, "that I am happy. Truly joyful. That I have almost everything I want out of life. A good home, a good life, a wonderful lover who gives me exactly what I crave. I have fulfilled my childhood dreams and touched the sky, while I have wonderful comrades all over the Sorcerous Empire who will not abandon me, not to mention of course, that I serve the finest king to ever be."

As she walked backwards Demiurge did not break or slow his stride, there was no need, they had danced this dance a thousand times, she knew exactly how to move to keep pace with him and exactly where to turn or move down the hall to get where she wanted to go.

"Then I would say I believe you." Demiurge said with a cocky little smile.

Vanysa grinned her toothy smile back at him. "Good, but there is one blemish on my happiness still, and that is Astraka. I have never been able to let go of the hatred, rage, and pain. The things he did and the things he had done. All that humiliation, all of that degradation, it consumed me for a long time. And as long as I 'have' to make him suffer, a part of him will always rule over me as if I were still that helpless peasant girl trembling in fear inside that carriage all those years ago. To 'forgive him' is not done for his sake, it is done for mine. So that 'I' can let go of it all. So that 'I' can cut the last thread to my former existence and embrace my life as it is today and will be tomorrow."

Demiurge was quiet for a long time, and Vanysa fell smoothly into step beside her mate. "I see." He finally said in a slow, drawn out voice. "If that is the case, and you are doing this for yourself and not for him, then so be it." Demiurge added after a few more moments of thought.

"I knew you'd understand, so, why don't you go get the things we need, and I'll go visit the fool who craved to be King of Men, one last time." She smiled happily and did not look as they forked paths.

She entered the room a short while later where Astraka had been kept. She entered the room in her human shape, one he knew very well, and he looked up limply from where he sat draped in chains.

"Hello Astraka." She said sweetly.

"B-Back again…" He whispered out, his eyes were filled with terror, "No more… please no more… I can't… please mistress Vanysa, I'll do anything… just don't hurt me anymore…" His was the face of a broken man who longed for the end of his own sanity.

Vanysa pulled up a chair and sat in front of him, she put her foot out 'almost' within his reach, and he immediately went for it, he'd learned it hurt less on days he abased himself to her, but she was just beyond what he could manage, she'd done that sometimes, watched him stretch out his tongue knowing that 'if' he could touch the sole of her shoe it would hurt much, much less, only to fail and wail thereafter.

Still, even though he knew he hadn't a prayer of touching her that way, he knew he had to try, not only out of vain hope, but also because if he tried hard enough, sometimes that resulted in less pain too. So every muscle strained against his chains as he stuck out his tongue, making desperate noises as he did so. Desperation sometimes pleased his mistress of pain.

"Do you know how long you've been here now?" Vanysa asked casually. That made him freeze, it was an unexpected question.

"No… thirty years?" He guessed.

"No, you've been here for… oh going on twelve years now. Kept in good health, I could keep you suffering for a natural life of another sixty or seventy, and that is assuming I do nothing to keep you young and start all over again." Vanysa said, watching the look of horror sweep over his face in place of his previous desperation.

"But, I've come to realize something." She said, "A part of you was still hurting me, even after all these years, and as long as I felt the urge to keep coming back to you for another session, well some tiny fragment of your life would still control me."

Astraka sat in silence, mystified, he stared at the woman in abject confusion.

"I'm truly happy now, so much of my life is wonderful, and whether I want to admit it or not, a part of that is because of what you did to me, horrible as it was. So, I've decided to forgive you. Not for your sake, but for mine, so that I can let go of everything in the past, and go on living and being happy from today onward."

"Am I… Are you really going to let me go, mistress, this isn't a trick…?" Astraka asked.

"Yes and no." She said, "You are going to be given a chance to serve the supreme being you dared oppose. Your reward for this service is a 'chance' to live. If this kills you, it kills you, but if it doesn't, then I will let you go. You will be given no money, no food, no water, and the world you knew is gone, you are forbidden from ever contacting any member of your former family, and you will never be permitted to hold a public office anywhere in the Sorcerous Empire. What you do beyond that, I do not care, because you will be nothing to me anymore. You will be a peasant, just like I was."

She leaned forward, "Weak, powerless, and poor, nobody can ever know who you were, you'll need a new name, which I will give to you and which you will live by for the rest of your days. But… you will be free. I do not usually let my prey go, but you were more… personal than all the rest. So your freedom is 'also' the final end of my past, as if you never existed in my life at all. Too, it is a gift to your father and mother, they died last year you know, within days of each other. They begged so hard for you before I caught took you, it reminded me of my own mother, my fiance, what they went through for me." She shook her head, she looked 'sad' which was something that Astraka did not expect.

"When your parents were dying, I went to see them, they'd begged for an audience with me, and I happened to be in the area doing something for Pope Neia, so I went. They begged for you again, I guess they at least, truly loved you, their most foolish son. I didn't promise them much, but it was… touching I suppose." Vanysa said, watching as he stared in rapt attention to her story.

"So… now here we are, I'm ready to move on, though I guess it took me long enough, as an immortal, well I have all the time in the world. You though, not so much." She smiled a toothy smile at him again, "So now you have a choice, it has been awhile since you had one of those, hasn't it?" She asked.

He nodded with a numb expression on his face.

"So, you can either beg to serve the Sorcerer King in an experiment, and gain either the freedom of death or the freedom of your life, whatever is left of it that you still have. Or… you can stay here, I won't be back to visit, but I'm sure Neuronist will have all kinds of fun with you until you die of old age. What will it be?" Vanysa asked.

"Please! Let me serve his majesty! Mistress I beg to serve! I beg of you!" He shouted out, twisting in his chains as he sought to entreat her, struggling to come close enough to use his tongue to influence her decision.

"Granted." Vanysa said with a smirk. A moment later, the door opened and Demiurge entered into the dim chamber.

"Does he understand what is to happen?" Demiurge asked in passing.

"As much as he needs to, and he's 'very' willing. I suspect that if I was right, then the change was influenced by the target's willingness to participate. Our dog here has been suffering for many years, he's very eager to offer himself up for this. Aren't you, boy?" She whispered as she went closer to him, when she came within reach, it was all the broken former ruler could do to yelp and bark like a dog to show his enthusiasm. He'd learned that particular game from Shalltear, much to Vanysa's amusement.

"Alright, what will we make him into?" Demiurge asked.

Vanysa thought the matter over, "Let's turn him into a ratman. It's a fairly complicated change, it is a fairly weak being, and it suits him very well."

Demiurge laughed, while Astraka looked at them in fear and uncertainty.

He didn't see anything for a few minutes after the light as bright as the sun went off in his face, but he felt a great deal of agony as his body reshaped itself. He gasped and cried in pain and rolled about the floor as bones and flesh and muscle were reorganized. Finally, his senses began to return, he smelled 'everything' around him, the dim light seemed brighter, he looked down at his hands, they were no longer human. He felt his body and felt matted, dirty brown fur.

"What… what am I Mistress?" He asked with a squeaky voice.

"A ratman." Demiurge said, and pulled out an appraisal scroll. After he used it, a dim blue light washed over Astraka, and the archdevil looked satisfied. "Marvelous, absolutely no sign of degeneration, his body has accepted this transformation and it will not turn back on its own."

"Any chance of explosion?" Vanysa asked indifferently.

"None evident." Demiurge said with optimism.

"Do you think he can breed?" Vanysa asked.

"Probably, and that might work out for the best if he does, ratmen are not a very intelligent species, if he breeds for a few decades when they come into season, the race might become more useful to Nazarick." Demiurge's voice held a positive note as he spoke.

Vanysa's smile was radiant, "A fitting end for the man who would be king. Rutting with the women of the ratmen in caves and warrens and filth to create future assets to Nazarick, until he dies. Say, what are their lifespans?" She asked.

"About forty to fifty years if they're not killed." Demiurge said thoughtfully as he searched his memory.

"Well, that is something." Vanysa said with a shrug, "Now it needs a new name." She looked down at the four foot tall ratman that had once been a towering king, "Your name is now 'Eek'. You will answer to no other." She said and she reached down and plucked a whisker painfully from his nose.

"This," She said as she held it up, "Is so we can find you whenever we need to, it is how they found my corpse after I died under your torture, if you should ever rebel, ever turn against us, ever become a criminal, we can find you in hours, and I will keep you alive here for another hundred years. When you perish, assuming you do so 'free', I will find your corpse the same way, and have you buried next to your parents, keeping my final promise to them. Do you have any questions, Eek?" Vanysa asked.

Astraka... Eek, shook his head vigorously and dared say not a word.

"Good." She said, "Now, I forgive you. Go live as you wish under the terms of your parole, scratching in caves just beyond the borders of the Sorcerous Empire, as I soar in the sky over the lands you once sought to rule, and regret me for the rest of your short and pathetic life."

The gate was opened for her quickly after that, and 'Eek', scurried through to whatever fate befell him.

"Now we're ready to try it with His Majesty, do you know what he wishes to try?" Vanysa asked.

"An Angel Lord, a giver of life, his opposite number." Demiurge said with pride.

"Fitting that the lord of death who gave me life, should have both realms of the divine to himself. Can I be there when it is offered to him?" Vanysa asked hopefully.

"That is his decision, but he has never refused a request of that sort before, so I see no reason why not." Demiurge reminded her.

An hour later they were in the great hall, Ainz had chosen to tell none of the other guardians of this project, in particular he had kept it from Albedo and Shalltear, and that made this 'feast day' an opportune time for a trial.

'My luck stat is really paying off.' Ainz thought to himself with what happiness he could manage without his limiter activating.

Demiurge and Vanysa took their time explaining what had been done and the successful human trial and the release of 'Eek' the former King Astraka. This had caught Ainz somewhat off guard, he'd expected that one day he would die in Nazarick of old age, or that Vanysa would kill him.

"Are you truly alright with this Vanysa?" Ainz asked with concern.

"I am, My Lord. Letting him go, allowed me to let go of the last tendrils of power his actions had over me. He is free, true, but so am I. Let him live out his days eeking out a living on the scraps of whatever society he migrates to, and at least before his end he rendered one good service to the one true king." She said both emphatically and proudly.

"Very well, then let us see the fruits of your work." Ainz said, and took the item in hand, it was a small rounded object shaped like an egg, meant to look like the race change item that had been used on Outer Guardian Renner to turn her into an archangel.

"Wish me luck." Ainz said wryly, and the flash of light went off in their faces.

Pain wracked his body as he felt the changes taking place, and as it faded, he looked down at his hands, expecting to see the glowing white aura of an angel being, and found instead that he had very ordinary human hands.

Demiurge and Vanysa were looking at him, aghast and in utter disbelief.

"Mirror! Bring me a mirror!" Ainz said in a sudden panic, his voice sounded very familiar, but more importantly, he realized he was panicking, emotions ran wild through his mind, and the suppressor did not activate, nor did it seem like there was any chance it could or would.

Demiurge ran to a wall, and pulled a mirror off of it, then brought it over to where Ainz stood. The Sorcerer King looked at the reflection staring back at him in shock, he was, in a word… himself. A little taller than he remembered, a lot shorter than he was used to feeling in the undead body, but it was 'almost' his own face, slightly more angular, as if the skull were some amalgam of his Overlord body's and the one he used to have as his own, but the almond shaped eyes, and everything else, was much as he remembered it.

"Demiurge? Vanysa? What… happened?" His voice went breathless and dazed. He was, in every respect that he could tell… entirely human once again. His heart was pounding in his chest, all he could say as he put his hand over it was, "I… have a heartbeat…" as a sudden rush of glorious wonder swept away all other emotions.


	2. Origin & an Outing

A Heart for a King

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 2:

...Nazarick…

"I'm… human? I was supposed to be an Angel Lord… why am I a human?!" Ainz asked in shocked disbelief. He looked away from his guardians and down at his hands, he touched the tips of his fingers to one another and felt real sensation. He took a deep breath of real air and held his arms out wide to let his lungs expand as much as he could. He touched his face, emotions ran rampant through him.

Then he began to sweat suddenly, humans were… generally despised in Nazarick. His eyes darted to Vanysa and Demiurge who were still looking at each other questioningly. 'Demiurge wouldn't turn on me like this… would he?' He wondered, and his mind turned to the other denizens, he felt sure some, like CZ, Cocytus, Sebas, Yuri Alpha, might protect him if they had to. Vanysa certainly would as well, and were she present, Neia would… but those who were more evil aligned or who bore a hatred for mankind or just a hatred for those not of Nazarick? Would their programming let them accept him even as a human? He raced through his memory of Demiurge's settings, nothing came to mind either way. Vanysa couldn't stop him, she hadn't a prayer, she might make a valiant effort, but she'd fight bravely and die quickly against even the weakest of the Guardians.

"Well?!" He snapped, putting his fists on his hips and trying to look angry. 'My power, do I have my power?!' He suddenly thought, he tried what he'd done on the first day and concentrated, he felt the power well within him. He could see that his level was still one hundred, his stats were all the same… but as he tried to look at his job classes, his eyes started to hurt and he stopped.

A second attempt was aborted when Demiurge and Vanysa turned their attention back to him.

"My… lord… it seems we have a problem." Demiurge said tentatively.

"I'm well aware of that, Demiurge. I was 'supposed' to take the form of an Angel Lord, a giver of life, yet I seem to be in the body of a human being. That is what the word 'problem' was created to define. Now stop telling me what I already know and get to the point!" Ainz snapped. Demiurge wilted a little.

Ainz took a deep breath and raised a palm up, he lowered his eyes, "I'm sorry, forgive me Demiurge, I realize this was not your intent. I seem to be 'feeling' things and I have to learn to control them."

"Th-Thank you, Lord Ainz. I assure you we will get to the bottom of this." Demiurge said, "I offer my sincerest apologies, please take my life after I have restored you to your glorious self."

Ainz shook his head, "I will not do that, but perhaps we will have a conversation about research protocols after this." He kept a cool head, then a thought occurred. "Excuse me a moment, why don't you talk this over, I want to check something."

Ainz walked away without explanation, as soon as he was out of sight, he opened his robe and looked down. "Yay! One upside to all this!" He whispered to himself and smiled. Then his thoughts turned again to Albedo and Shalltear. "Oh gods… or is there!?" His face went pale.

He forced himself to regain his calm and thought the matter over. What the hell to do?

When Ainz walked out, Vanysa spoke softly to her paramour, "Have you any idea what went wrong?" She asked.

"None." Demiurge looked at her with concern. "The item should have worked, we tried it every which way."

"Let me see it." Vanysa said thoughtfully, and Demiurge opened his hand. They looked at one another with alarm, the item was crumbling away to dust.

"No… NO!" Vanysa said with alarm, just as Ainz returned. He found them both sinking to their knees and prostrating themselves with faces to the stone.

"Oh no… What?" Ainz asked with trepidation in his voice.

"My lord… the item… it has been destroyed." Demiurge said fearfully.

Ainz swallowed with an audible gulp.

Vanysa had tears in her eyes, "Master… I'm sorry… but… we can make another."

Ainz drew himself up, and pointed first to one, and then to the other. "You would not be crying, and you would not be fearful, if that were a simple process. What is the problem?"

"It will take a month." He said grimly.

"And?" Ainz asked.

"Many lives. And too, we don't know that it will work." Vanysa added.

"Lives?" Ainz asked.

"Yes, my lord, to create this we had to rip the mana reserves whole and intact out of a living subject, the effect was lethal." Demiurge explained.

"How many?" Ainz asked.

"A hundred." Vaysa said unhappily.

"And they were?" Ainz probed further, "You wouldn't care about a mere hundred lives, and given who you are Vanysa, I have no doubt they deserved it."

"My lord, the problem is it takes the mana reserves of a third tier caster, the only well of those were from Zuranon agents, they're the largest 'punishment worthy' organization, and…" Vanysa started to explain, then closed her mouth.

"You did your work hunting them down extremely well, so now you're worried you won't find enough candidates and you don't want to use obedient assets." Ainz finished the thought.

Vanysa nodded mutely from her prostrate position on the floor.

Ainz frowned, it actually… felt good to frown. "How long will it take to gather the proper 'materials'? He asked.

Vanysa and Demiurge whipped out notepads and began flipping through them in unison, then began to talk to each other using a rapid stream of unfamiliar acronyms.

"The D.K. is largely empty but what about the R.K.?" She asked him.

"Mostly empty since the Octopus was wiped out years ago but there might be a few in hidden pockets near the Rockpiles." Demiurge replied rapidly, "The B.E. is largely untouched though…" He added.

She flipped through her notebook and shook her head, "No, I went through the B.E. after the 'incident' with the R.B.s, I figured if anyone could utter something so absurd there might be some kind of dissent there, I scoured it thoroughly and found only a handful of guilty minds and a slightly larger pool of the potentially guilty who had not actually done anything." She sighed with frustration, "You know where I stand Demi, unless they act to create guilt, I leave them be as the law requires action."

"Tempting though." The seventh floor Guardian said pointedly.

"Very." She agreed.

Ainz listened patiently as they threw acronyms back and forth at an ever faster pace, but eventually his patience began to wane and he started tapping his foot.

"Ahem." He said with a mildly annoyed expression. "Your answer?" He asked, folding his arms in front of his chest and giving his best stink eye.

"Master…" She said with a bow, gazing intently down at his feet. "We think we can gather the materials in two weeks, but we have one serious concern."

"Which is?" Ainz asked hesitantly.

"Sire," Demiurge said, bowing net to her, "We must figure out why this turned you to a human and then burned out. It 'should' have taken you all the way to an Angel Lord 'and' had enough mana left to turn you back into your natural august form."

Ainz could feel the sudden tension in the Erinyes as soon as it hit her. Demiurge was far too absorbed in his apologetic state to the Sorcerer King to be aware of it himself.

"Demiurge, I would have words with your paramour alone for a moment." Ainz said sharply.

The archdevil had a sudden aura of concern coming off of him, but he obeyed unquestioningly, and though he gave a glance in her direction, he departed swiftly.

When they were alone, Ainz looked down at her. "Raise your head." He ordered, and she slowly straightened up.

"You figured it out, didn't you." He said. It was not a question.

She gave a small nod. "No others know?" She asked rhetorically, certain of the answer.

"No, none." He answered gravely.

"Is this what you looked like… before?" She asked in awe.

"Not quite, but very close, as if my undead form has blended partially with my former human one." He replied in a mystified and disturbed voice.

"Master… you were truly 'human' once?" She had a hushed voice and he watched her eyes as a thousand little things going back to the days when he first met her, snapped into place. She gave him a wry smile, "No wonder you liked to look. Sure makes a lot of sense now."

He actually cracked a smile himself at that.

A fearful expression came over her face. "Am… are… do you have to kill me to keep this secret? If no others know, I presume that is by your desire, as I do…"

"If I say yes?" He answered.

She looked down. "Please just make it painless." She said softly and closed her eyes tight.

"Good answer, but no. I will however, seal or erase that memory when the present circumstances are resolved. You may keep that knowledge for now, as it may help you to resolve the situation. But under no circumstances are you to reveal it to anyone." He admonished her firmly.

She opened her eyes with a sigh of relief, "I understand, master, your secret is safe with me."

"Can you help Demiurge craft a suitable incantation to affix to the next item, without him knowing why this one failed?" He asked with some hesitation in his voice.

She nodded confidently, "I can, knowing that this is what you 'began as' tells me that the item functioned as a kind of 'undo' or 'reset' that brought you back to your foundational point, my guess is that the mana expended was required to keep your human form while holding all your power."

"How did you come to that conclusion?" He asked curiously.

"Because when Neia Baraja channelled it, doing so started to rip her body to shreds, I saw the report of what she looked like, when researching her after the fact with Demi, I interviewed Skana, Lakyus, and CZ, all of them reported that her skin was being ripped off and carried skyward where it disappeared like leaves being carried away by fire. She was not a weak human, and yet just channeling it, not containing it, nearly killed her. It seems reasonable then that a human body is not intended to carry that much. Therefore the item had to modify your flesh to keep you capable of holding it all. The next item will reverse it and should have plenty of mana left over, but it will have only enough remaining to transform a weak being once." Her voice was clinical and she tapped her fingers on her palm as if she were recording her thoughts.

"I see. Well at least it will have some other use at some point, but what about something that would carry me the rest of the way to an intended being and back again?" He asked, still interested in the project concept and feeling his gamer spirit stirring at the thought of such a useful thing.

Vanysa shook her head regretfully, "Making multiple individual items might be feasible, but such a process might have trouble converting through two forms, and then there is the risk it might be irreversible back to your unliving glory if it thinks of your human state as the original. If I may speak freely your majesty…" She looked to him for his consent.

He gave a slow and quiet nod.

"I would not risk that without at least another hundred years of time for us to research the subject. The risk is simply too great." Her clipped and professional tone became deeply concerned, and as he listened to her final statement, he sensed that he was not being warned by a professional so much as he was being advised by someone who simply cared about him.

Emotions ran rampant through his body as he saw the care and concern on her beautiful demonic face.

"Let me see you as you were." He said softly, in a tone she'd never heard from him before.

She gingerly and uncertainly withdrew her wings back into her body and looked at him anxiously as her skin went pale, her hair returned to blonde, the little freckles on her left breast, like an artist's finishing touch on a masterpiece, were returned to form. She put her hands behind her back, she had no idea what he was thinking, so she remained quiet.

Memories flooded through his brain, things he'd experienced through the years, her life, her laughter, her pain, her near death from illness, her kidnapping, seeing her tortured corpse, her return… but this time carried with the flood of memories, from her teasing to her torment and her final triumph, came every emotion he had been unable to feel at the time.

Ainz staggered and touched his hand to his head.

"Master, are you…" He waved his hand as she began to express concern, then he stepped back and sat on the steps leading up to his throne. He looked at her again, and the flood burst through his eyes and ran down his face as if to drown the world.

"I said this as an undead, but let me say it now as a living man. You are… truly beautiful, and I am sorry about what happened, and I am so glad you are alright again."

She smiled sweetly but did not approach. "I know." She said gently. "I know."

She let him pour out long suppressed emotions that his undead form had not let him feel, and only when she sensed it had run its course, did she ask him with gentle patience, "Master… do you want to go back to the way you were?"

He actually had to pause to consider it, but then he gave her a sad look and said, "I have to. This form, good as it feels, is less who I am and who I need to be, then there is the question of my abilities, how much did I lose, if anything? I simply can't tell, so as good as it feels to… well… 'feel' again, I need to go back. I will enjoy this experience for a little while and treat it as a kind of vacation." He added with a smirk.

"Shall we keep Lady Albedo and Lady Shalltear confined then?" She asked hesitantly. "If they learn of this…" She paused and gave him a salacious grin, "Or perhaps master would prefer that we send the two of them to your chambers tonight…?"

"Vanysa… don't even joke about that." He said uncomfortably. She laughed wickedly and covered her mouth while trying (and failing) to pretend she wasn't laughing.

Ainz rolled his eyes and let out a deep sigh that he very much enjoyed being able to truly make at last.

"I'll have to visit a few places, make it a bit of a tour, I'd very much like to try some of the things my empire has to offer in terms of food, beer, wine, and dessert." He added enthusiastically.

"Will that be before or after the sex?" Vanysa asked lecherously.

Ainz opened and closed his mouth several times because there was no good answer that didn't expose him to another joke. Instead after he'd opened and closed his mouth a few times, he simply laughed with her.

When the laughter died, Ainz gave her a serious look, "Get the materials as fast as you can, I can live with this for a few weeks, I'll make the best of it, which might not be half bad, but I want a way back as fast as possible. Tell Demiurge what you have to, but no more. And remember, when you no longer require this knowledge or this problem ends, that memory 'must' be sealed or erased, am I understood?"

"Yes master. I will submit my mind to your power, do with me as you will." She said deferentially. Her gaze lowered accordingly.

"Good. I swear I will take no unnecessary liberties with it." He replied and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"It is entirely yours, whatever you wish to do with it, is up to you." She replied, giving him a smile of gratitude, that even in the passing of years, had not diminished in the slightest.

"Go, rejoin Demiurge, get to work, I'll be speaking to the rest of the guardians soon, but I would prefer to let the two of you spread the word so that I do not end up having to fight when they think me an intruder in my own home. They would no doubt end their lives to atone for it." He said with a degree of equal parts reverence and annoyance that matched his visible sigh.

"If the two of you explain it first, then it won't be so much of a shock when I return like this." He calmly instructed.

"It will be done, master. But in the meantime, where should I tell them to find you?" She asked hesitantly. "They will be profoundly uncomfortable thinking of you unguarded and in an unknown location… and so would I." She added sincerely.

"I will go to Carne, there are people there I would like to see, in particular, a few couples who would no doubt warmly receive me, no matter what face I wear. The eight edge assassins will be with me as well, so do not worry." He added when he saw the worried expression on her face.

"I will relay the information, Master." She added with a somewhat hesitant voice.

"Good." He said, and when the gate opened, he stepped through it without fear, and found himself standing out in front of Nfirea and Enri's manor. He approached the gate and lightly rapped on the door, then put a large smile on his face as he waited.

**AN: Well I hope you find this to be worth reading. This has been a fan commissioned piece. I realize this concept is somewhat generally frowned upon... given some of the reviews and messages I've received since taking up the challenge. However know that I will do my damnedest to render a great story. If it turns out you don't care for it, well I can't hit a home run with every swing. :)**


	3. The Unknown Friend

A Heart for a King

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 3:

...The City of Carne Village…

It was no sooner than he'd knocked that he had a sudden moment of inspiration. He quickly drew a pair of scrolls from his pocket dimension and gave himself the appearance of a homeless, destitute soldier. He looked over the disguise, his body appeared rather filthy and he, hungry. He drew out a bit of tattered clothing, a ruined uniform from a dead soldier, he'd had it enchanted to preserve it, and as a consequence he could put it on and it would adjust to his body, from here he could not be seen thanks to the hedgerows leading up to the door, so he quickly put on the tattered uniform. Between the dirty, unwashed face, and his body having the appearance of someone who had been hungry for a long time, anyone would draw their own conclusions. Whatever their abilities, seeing through illusions and disguises were not among them. He wiped away the smile from his face and put a haggard expression on instead.

A few moments later, an elf came to the door, dressed in a butler's uniform, he was sharply dressed, well fed, and had fully intact ears. For a moment Ainz wondered if he was a migrant from the Elven Province, but that question was answered without being asked. The elf's face took on a reverential expression when he saw the tattered uniform of one of the soldiers that had fought under General Enri. Ainz mentally braced himself as he got into character, he needed to sound anxious, eager to please, and for that he drew on Mare for inspiration, and then began to speak.

Ainz lowered his gaze, and put a tattered military cap in both hands at waist height, he turned it in a 'nervous' circle in front of his body. "Aye… ayam sorry to be a bother… but… but… I was just hoping that may-maybe General Enri needed s-some work done. I s-served with her once upon a time. Aye don't need much, I'll do what she needs just for a meal and then I'll move on. Please." He added, and let his stomach rumble noisily.

The elf could not move fast enough. "Please wait here, I will call for the mistress of the house."

The elf quickly rushed away from the door, and with his sharp hearing Ainz caught the entire exchange, it was but a few moments later that Enri herself was at the door. "Come in, come in." She said urgently, "Let me have some food prepared for you! I don't have any work, but I won't let you leave wanting!" She rang a bell and a trio of female elf servants materialized from various rooms.

"Prepare a room for a guest, and also prepare a meal, a bath, and some decent clothing." She said urgently. The elf females were a fairly lovely trio, and it wasn't hard to guess, after they gave a similarly reverential look to Ainz's 'homeless veteran' disguise, how they'd come to find themselves in her service.

"Please follow me to wait for everything to be made ready." Enri said sweetly. As Ainz looked at her, he noticed something that hadn't really caught his eyes in the past, while her expression had the same warm, even generally loving look it had when he'd first met her, there was a hardness to her eyes, just beneath the surface, that he'd overlooked when he'd been undead. 'Did I do that to her?' He wondered. 'Yes, probably, well, war did, but it was my war so…' He let out a mental sigh, after Neia fairly set the standard for terrifying expressions, anything else looked gentle by comparison, making subtle distinctions harder when he had little in the way of emotion himself.

He followed her as she walked with a brisk confidence that belied her peasant past. Ainz followed, keeping up his act and sitting where she gestured at a large dining table. "You have a… beautiful home, General Enri." He said politely, looking around admiringly.

"Thank you… I'm sorry, I didn't get your name." She said with an encouraging smile.

"Ah, erm... my friends call me Herm." He said hastily.

"Well thank you, Herm. This home was a gift to me from His Majesty, to celebrate the birth of my first child and to reward my husband and I for all our service during the war. The servants I kind of… stumbled into having, liberated from a few places, they wanted to show their gratitude, and so after the war ended, they sought me out here and settled in." She had a dark expression briefly pass across her face as the memories of the war were recalled to her mind, but she shook them off and the smile returned.

"Can I ask…" her voice took on a gentle air, "how can I help you? If all you want is a meal, I won't force you to stay, but I won't forget one of my soldiers, leaving one behind destitute and hungry is as bad as leaving a wounded comrade on the battlefield. If you'd like to stay the night, you can, and tomorrow I'll find a place for you. Some work, maybe get you into a home somewhere or…" Her voice became sympathetic and a little hesitant, "maybe get you into one of the recovery houses, I could ask the Sorcerer King for his help in getting you space immediately…"

Ainz shook his head, "No, I'm on my way to Re-Estize, I have family there, getting back to them is all I really want." He said hastily, quickly improvising a lie to keep his cover.

"I see." She pursed her lips, "Well, at the very least after you've gotten some rest and a meal, let me send you at least part way in my carriage, and take enough coin with you to eat on your way to your family."

Ainz smiled, "I'd be mighty appreciative of that, General Enri." He said in a grateful tone of voice.

"Just 'Enri' now. My days as a General are behind me." She gave him a winning smile just as the food arrived.

Ainz looked down at the plate of food, this part did not require any acting. He inhaled the scent and savored it like a man who hadn't eaten in years… and point in fact, he hadn't. "Thank you." He said sincerely as he looked down at what was placed delicately there by the elf servant. It was a large, thick steak, a steamed potato cut open and covered with butter, bacon, and a creamy sauce, and beside that were some butter smothered greens, his mouth watered as the sensations hit him all at once.

Enri smiled at him indulgently, the years had been very kind to her, most humans who lived into their thirties looked twenty years older than they were, but she retained the vigor and glow of youth, now that he looked at her with human eyes, she was quite lovely in a way, he smiled with amusement thinking on all the times Nfirea had talked of his sex life with him. 'At some point I will have to remember to congratulate him on his fine catch.' Ainz mused, then dug into the meal with vigor.

Grace was off the table, he ate ravenously and his little noises of enjoyment along the way brought a titter of amusement to the Grand Matriarch. She just sat resting her cheek on her hand and let him eat in peace, enjoying his enjoyment vicariously.

'Poor man.' She thought sadly, 'He obviously hasn't eaten well for a very long time. What a terrible thing is war, that it should reduce the brave to this.' Still, she could do something for one of her own, even if he wouldn't accept everything.

When he finished the meal, she rang for a maid, and one of the elf women appeared again. Enri looked over at her, "Sala, take our guest to the bath, and get an extra set of clothing ready for him to take with him."

"As you wish, my lady." She said with deference that bordered on adoration. She bowed politely, and Ainz stood to follow her.

She walked with slow, practiced, steady steps that echoed off the walls smooth polished marble walls. "May I ask… where you served?" The elf woman tentatively spoke, "I don't wish to raise poor memories but…" She stopped when Ainz cleared his throat.

"It would be a shorter list to say where I was not. But the worst, was Kami Miyako." He said sadly.

She paused. "I… I was there. General Enri's division was what liberated me. So for what it is worth," she looked at him and bowed deeply, "thank you."

"Ah, you're welcome…" Ainz said, rubbing the back of his head uncomfortably. "Is that how you came to be here?"

She nodded. "After things settled down, I had nowhere to go, so I took work with her army and briefly stopped in Ikari to work as a maid at one of the 'Nazarick styled' hotels, I stayed there for a year, but when the announcement that the General who saved us was going to have her first child, I rushed to the city of Carne Village to apply for a job as a nurse maid. As it turned out, she wasn't looking for that, but when His Majesty gave her this manor, I applied for a job as a servant in this capacity instead, and I have been here ever since, through all three births, and it has been the best time of my life." The maid smiled happily.

"I take it you intend to stay then." Ainz said somewhat sardonically as they resumed their walk.

"Oh yes, her little sister and her adopted daughter are wonderful girls, and that boy the Sorcerer King took on who is often with them is a fine young man. I miss them, but that is what people do, they grow up, they leave, and you can only hope they come back again." She gave a winsome smile, "I'll serve in this house for many generations to come, if they'll continue to keep me."

They came to a long wide staircase and began to walk up. "You don't hate humans?" He asked her, "I know many that were never able to stop hating them after their time in the Theocracy."

She slowed her steps as she thought, then smiled tenderly over her shoulder at him as he followed. "I saw men like you, die to save people like me. True there was a time when I thought all humans were just monsters, but I know better now, and this house and this city prove daily how wrong that thinking is."

"I'm glad to hear that." Ainz said as they reached the top and she approached a door.

"In here please." She said with a deferential bow of her head, "I will return with two changes of clothing for you, just leave what you're wearing, here at the door, my sister should have finished drawing the water for you by now, and I trust the temperature will be to your liking."

"I'm sure it will be wonderful." Ainz said with unforced sincerity. This had no acting required, it had been ages since he'd been able to truly 'enjoy' a bath, and so in he went with great eagerness. The door closed behind him and he took off his clothing. The bathroom was large, had an oval shape bath filled with steaming hot water, the bath itself was made of obsidian and had been polished smooth, it had a marvelous shine to it. To the right of it was a large mirror above a soapstone counter with multicolored patterns common to that kind of material, in this case, very dark tones. He folded his clothes and set them on the counter and as he approached the bath, he paused to inspect himself over in the mirror.

"Well, you've really done it this time, haven't you Suzuki… or are you Ainz… or are you Momonga? I don't even know anymore. But whichever is the case, you're stuck like this for a month and a half, give or take. I wonder how long it will be before Shalltear and Albedo start looking for me?" He said to himself and sighed tiredly before stepping into the hot water. He sighed as the feeling of heat swept over his body, and eased himself down over the smooth stone.

"At least I look good, well, if not exactly how I remember myself." Ainz casually mused as he sank to the bottom of the hot water and started to wash. "So this was what living was like, I'd… almost forgotten." He said wistfully.

Somewhere downstairs Enri was occupied with some aspect of her house, her children were probably at school, they'd met him as a skeleton, and stood in awe of him as if he were the unliving god so many proclaimed him to be. The whim behind his disguising his identity began to solidify.

"I don't want to tell them. I want to enjoy this." He said as he slipped deeper into the waters. As his lips dipped below the waterline he wondered if he could drown, his eyes widened a little. What an end that would be, the all powerful god that brought down nations… drowning in a bathtub. It was laughable.

He splashed about a little as he moved around, and scrubbed with a cloth and a nearby bar of soap. What had been an idle whim to see how she behaved when someone in need appeared, became something else. A chance to get to know his… colleagues, comrades, servants? Without any kind of a barrier of status in the way.

He sighed, somewhere in the world he'd left behind, his friends might still be living their lives, or… they might still be here, or they might have been here and died centuries ago, or perhaps they had simply not appeared yet, but would in the future? So many mysteries to contemplate. Wherever they were, he hoped against hope they were happy.

"Maybe I'm being selfish, but I hope you're somewhere in this world, I need to think we share the same sky, and that you're alive out there somewhere, waiting for me to find you. When I do, I hope you're all proud of the empire I've built. Hero Hero… nobody grinds away like you do in merciless hours for uncaring bosses. Ulbert, nobody struggles to find enough food for their children's mouths. Bukubukuchagama, no woman in my empire has to fear being harassed by their employer, or having to choose between her self respect or the ability to eat. Blue Planet… I've done my best to protect the nature of this world, to find a balance between the things people need, and the needs of the planet itself. Garnet… I have had schools built everywhere, encouraged learning, children don't toil in labor, instead they read and write… I want so much for you all to see this but I don't… I don't know if you ever will…"

Ainz was sitting up then as he spoke to the empty room, to the ghosts of friends who one by one passed before his eyes as he said their names one after the other and how he'd tried to make a place they'd love to live in, a paradise, a true Utopia. But as he said these things, and saw them come and go away as if they never truly were… a new emotion sprang to the fore.

Sadness. Something he couldn't feel for the longest time, he wondered if it had been building up in his undead body before, because now there seemed to be a tidal flood of it as he thought about them in that moment. "Where are you now…?" He wondered quietly in a whisper so low that even had the water of his bath had a means to listen, then it would have strained to catch the sound of his voice as his mournful tears added to its depths, drop by drop as if he shed a single one for every day and every friend that vanished from his life since he'd first come to the New World.

Unwilling to venture out as he currently felt, he remained in the rising water till the last drop fell away and made it's little ripple in the water near his chest, and vanished like it too had never been. He then washed his face thoroughly, hoping to clean away all evidence of what he'd felt as he slowly regained control over himself.

"I can't say I missed that feeling…" He forced a smile out to his reflection in the mirror as he got out and began to dry off. The towel was of high quality and it felt wonderful against his new flesh. The mirror was quite steamed over now, obscuring his face and body from view. He went towards the door, the tattered soldier's clothing was gone, in its place was a comfortable looking set of traveling clothes, the sort suitable for a moderately successful merchant, along with a replacement pair.

He smiled at the closed door. "I chose well, in choosing you, Enri." He said proudly. After that he put the clothing on and exited the room, then followed his way back, tracing his course to the main floor where he found Enri sitting at a table having a cup of wine and reading a book.

"I see you're looking…" She started to speak as she raised her eyes, but as her eyes lifted and she caught his face, she stopped speaking.

"Are you alright, Herm?" She asked with empathy in her voice.

"Just memories, old memories and old problems and old dreams gone away. Thinking about some people I lost a long time ago, good friends, the very best." He said sadly. "Don't let it trouble you."

She nodded in understanding, "I know the feeling, I lost my parents when I was a teenager, I and my sister almost died that day as well, till the greatest king to ever live appeared and saved us. I doubt it will mean much, but even though you've lost people, don't forget that even if they can't be replaced, you may find new comrades some day." She said with gentle hopefulness.

Ainz laughed quietly, "Many years ago some other people said the same thing to me, a team of adventurers I traveled with once, I told them that day would never come. They had bright dreams and great ambitions. We parted one evening, and they all died together shortly thereafter. As I think of them now, in a way I envy them because they went together, as a team, as a family." He shook his head again, "I'm sorry, I'm rambling on about pointless things." He gave her a grateful look as he raised his head. "And perhaps you're both right, I am still alive, and that counts for quite a bit." He then bowed and headed for her front door.

**AN: Well another chapter down. If you're enjoying this work and others like it, leave a review or just stop by the Overlord Fanfiction discord and tell me so. If you'd like to have your own story commissioned (goes to charity) well you'll have to wait because I've got two going now, but after that, sure. And if this gives you all the feels, well good, that means I did a decent job.**


	4. A Sweet Day

_...Nazarick…_

"My Lord… has become a human?" Sebas said in breathless disbelief, his normally straight face actually took on a look of open mouthed disbelief that he had to consciously correct.

"That's right." Demiurge said gravely. "He seems to have retained his power, but how much of it we're not sure, he seemed to think some of it was 'changed' somehow. The experiment was supposed to turn him into an Angel Lord. A kind of 'god of life' if you will. But for some reason it transitioned him to a human body instead, I still don't know why."

Cocytus's face was always expressionless, but there was concern, at least, in his tone of guttural voice. "Where is our Lord now?"

"Alone in the throne room with Vanysa still, I presume. He wanted to speak with her privately about something." Demiurge said dismissively.

Shalltear's eyes narrowed. "Might he have wanted to try," she glanced over at the young dark elf twins, and adjusted her intended words, "this and that with her? Now that he can again?" Suspicion filled her voice and her anxiety began to rise.

"If he does, well, all in Nazarick are his to do with as he wishes." He shrugged that thought off as insignificant, the monogamous intentions of so many humans were a curiosity to him, but not something he cared about.

His answer however, seemed to outrage Shalltear to no end and she tore off screeching down the hall with her arms outstretched. "Vanysssssaaaa! You get your talons off him! I get to go first!" She yelled.

"W-What is she talking about?" Mare asked innocently, anxiously fidgeting with his staff.

"I'll tell you when you're older." Aura said, she bent her arms and shrugged with her palms up.

The other guardians looked down at her. "Do 'you' actually know?" Demiurge asked.

"No, but I'm bound to find out when 'I' am older, then I'll tell Mare." Aura said in her cocky, confident voice and cut a broad grin at the lot of them.

Heavy sighs escaped their lips.

"Th-Thank you sister!" Mare exclaimed and bowed his head.

"She won't accidentally hurt our Lord, will she?" Sebas asked with concern as the thought occurred to him.

Demiurge touched his thumb and forefinger to his chin. "No, definitely not, even if he is temporarily trapped in a human body, he is definitely still the Master of Nazarick. I could still sense his strength and magic within him. She might exhaust his new body, but she definitely will not harm it."

"That is a relief." Cocytus said plainly.

"Exhaust him doing what?" The twins asked.

"Wrestling." Sebas answered abruptly, "A kind of wrestling grownups do." He said, improvising a euphemism.

"Oh." The twins said with the sage voices of understanding, before sharing a look that said they understood nothing at all, but at least they let the matter drop.

"Shalltear won't kill your paramour though, will she?" Sebas asked Demiurge, somewhat doubtfully.

Demiurge paused for a moment, about to answer, but then as he opened his mouth to do so, he closed it.

"Excuse me, I have somewhere to be... a minute ago." He said, and then his wings popped out of his back and he started flying down the hallway in the direction that Shalltear had gone.

"They are excitable." Sebas said calmly.

"Shalltear and Demiurge?" Aura asked.

"No," Sebas said with a shake of his head, "Lady Shalltear and Lady Albedo."

"B-But does A-Albedo know?" Mare asked.

"I doubt it, she is confined and only the maids and those who were here just now, including ourselves, know about this." Sebas replied.

"B-But her confinement was only for the d-day, she'll be out in l-little while." Mare reminded them with an anxiety riddled voice. "A-As soon as she kn-knows, she'll w-want to wrestle L-Lord Ainz."

"Oh my." Sebas said in a steel voice.

"Indeed." Cocytus said, echoing the sentiment.

...Throne Room of Nazarick...

Vanysa was just leaving when she heard Shalltear screaming her name. The demoness had long since increased her confidence in her own mental faculties, and was confident in her deductive abilities. So much so that when she heard her name being screeched from a distance that she drew a conclusion about Shalltear's conclusions and considered it unwise to be too close at hand when the vampire caught up to her.

'I'm a lot stronger than I used to be… but the only victory I can have over Shalltear is to not fight her in the first place.' She thought to herself and immediately searched around for a way out.

There was only one door and that did not have another exit. Acting quickly, she opened the throne room door and then shifted to her human state. She could still hear Shalltear. "Keep those fingers off him too! Don't think I'll show mercy just because you make yourself look like a bimbo!"

Vanysa waited until the vampire had charged down the hall and into the throne room, and then she closed it and activated the seal, closing it firmly shut.

Only then did she return to her erinyes shape, allowing Shalltear to recognize that her prey's scent was actually 'outside' the room. She whirled and pounded on the door.

"Open this door right now! You think I'll let you…" Shalltear began.

"You know very well that the door will unseal on its own when your aggression level has gone down." Vanysa replied.

"Yeaaargh!" Shalltear screeched and pounded again. "Did you already do it with him? Did you?!"

"No." Vanysa said.

"You're lying!" Shalltear retorted.

"I'm not." Vanysa maintained. "I can prove it."

"How?!" Shalltear shrieked.

"Simple, two things." Vanysa said, increasingly relieved. "First, if someone like Lord Ainz had his way with me, I'd sound a lot more tired than I currently do. Second, you know quite well you'd smell his intoxicating scent all over me, no matter what form he took."

Shalltear went incredibly silent. Vanysa felt her heart rate go down.

"Ahem, yes, of course I knew that." Shalltear said, sounding increasingly more calm.

"Of course you did, Lady Shalltear." Vanysa stated calmly, "You were just eager to serve Lord Ainz in the way he most ardently deserved and feared I might not be up to the task, since of course you'd never interfere with his desires, no matter what they were." She added in a placating tone of voice as the seal disengaged and Shalltear opened the door from within.

Shalltear was out of her monstrous state and returned to that of a beautiful young girl. Her face said that there was absolutely nothing amiss as she strolled calmly out.

"You're right of course, how insightful of you Vanysa." She said sweetly with her eyes closed and her nose slightly upturned.

"Well thank you, of course." Vanysa answered at much greater ease.

"There's just one, small, little detail I hope you can help me with." Shalltear said as she stopped in front of the demoness.

'Oh… shit.' Vanysa thought to herself as Shalltear opened her eyes.

"Lord Ainz was not in there, so… where 'exactly' did he go?" The vampire girl asked, stepping intimately close, close enough that Vanysa could smell the sweet scent of her perfume, and then she took hold of Vanysa's arm, not enough to hurt, but enough to show that she could.

"Ah… Lord Ainz… he told me to say he was taking a little 'vacation'. There were places he wanted to go." Vanysa replied anxiously.

"Shalltear." Demiurge spoke up as he neared, Vanysa restrained her sigh of relief.

The vampire looked over at him.

"Yes, Demiurge?" She asked.

"If she did not do anything to shame or betray Nazarick, you do not get to discipline her. And if Lord Ainz told her to keep his location secret, then expecting her to reveal it to you would be a violation of our Lord's will." Demiurge said calmly.

Shalltear relaxed noticeably and let go of Vanysa's arm.

"Besides, part of why he is this way is because of her contribution to my research, you should be grateful to her." Demiurge added, and Shalltear did a double take at the demoness, seeing her in a new light.

The pair had never been friends, but nor had they been enemies, though once or twice the lustful vixen had made a pass her way as if to entice her, nothing had ever happened for good or ill. Vanysa long suspected that it had been mainly done to entice her away from the 'pro Albedo' side of who should wed Lord Ainz first, but it had been flattering nonetheless. As far as the women of Nazarick went, the two simply seldom had occasion to work together, and save for the occasional common indulgence in the suffering of an unfortunate fool, when their sadistic tendencies overlapped, they had no other mutual interests to bring them into contact.

"Are you forbidden from revealing where Lord Ainz has gone?" Shalltear asked her directly.

"No." Vanysa said truthfully.

"Then can you tell me where he went?" She asked with equal eagerness.

"I can, but not where he is now, he didn't say how long he planned to stay or who he intended to see exactly." Vanysa replied truthfully.

Shalltear sighed unhappily at that. "Then tell me what you can." She replied.

"He went to the City of Carne Village, he said there were people he wished to visit there." Vanysa responded sincerely.

"Good enough." Shalltear said and reached into her pocket dimension and pulled out a paper and pencil. "Draw him, show me what my precious Lord now looks like!" A gleam of desire shone in her eyes, and Vanysa took it in hand.

She glanced at Demiurge, he nodded silently, and she pressed the paper up against the stone wall so that it lay flat, and sketched a rough picture out of what he looked like in his current human form.

She crumpled the first paper up and held her hand out over her shoulder. "Another." She said, and Shalltear handed her a fresh sheet. This went on for five more sheets of paper with the vampire growing increasingly annoyed until at last the scribbling halted.

"There! Much better." Vanysa said and offered the paper back to Shalltear with a firm nod of satisfaction.

The vampire took the paper in hand and looked down at it. She showed it to Demiurge and asked, "Is this an accurate picture?"

The demon took the document and looked at it through crystal eyes, then handed it back to her. "It is very good. She could use a few lessons in drawing, but it is as close as a crude effort can come."

"So people will recognize him if they've seen him and I show them this?" Shalltear asked hesitantly.

"They will." He said confidently.

"Good, thank you." Shalltear said and opened up a gate. She went through it as fast as she could, leaving Demiurge and Vanysa alone.

When the gate closed, Vanysa sighed with relief. "She's a scary one." She said truthfully.

"No doubt." Demiurge replied. "But tell me, just what did you lie about?"

"Lie?" Vanysa said sweetly. "Not a thing."

"What did you 'leave out' then?" He asked pointedly.

"You know me too well, Demi." Vanysa said with a clever look to his pointed one.

"I do, now out with it." He said shortly.

She sighed, "You're unwholesomely clever, Demi. Very well, it is true that Lord Ainz did not say who he was going to see, but I believe I figured out his intentions."

"And you did not tell her because…?" He asked thoughtfully.

She gave a little half smile to her paramour. "To give Lady Albedo a chance to catch up, and to give Lord Ainz a head start."

"I see, well I suppose I should not be surprised." He said.

"No, you shouldn't be." She replied in a confident voice. "Now, shall we go about gathering those materials? Finding one hundred third tier casters who deserve very unpleasant, painful deaths is no easy task and we have no time to waste."

"Yes, let's go to my office and go through the reports, see what hints we can find that may lead us in the right direction." He said and started to walk down the hall. She fell into step beside him with casual familiarity.

"One question though." He added.

"Yes?" She replied.

"How did you last long enough for me to get here?" He asked curiously.

She laughed, "Oh let me tell you…" She said and began to explain.

_...City of Carne Village..._

As Ainz headed towards the door, the elf manservant stood by with a new field pack, while an elf female stood by holding a small coin purse.

"Those are for you." Enri said generously, "Please, take them. Your old clothes are in there, along with some rations, a few potions, other things you may need, and I took the liberty of preparing some coins for your use."

"I… thank you." He said, genuinely moved by her concern and enjoying the warm glow within him that her kindness raised.

The elf female smiled at him, "Me and the other servants… we took up a little collection and added it to what the mistress gave. Use it the way you want, stay safe and… thank you."

Ainz let his face relax and he accepted her bow with aplomb. He put the second set of clothes that had been left upstairs for him into the pack, then threw it on his back and with a wave, opened the door. "If I may, could I come say hello to you again if I pass through this city in the future?"

Enri grinned, "I'm always glad to see one of my soldiers, please come by whenever you wish. And reach out to me if you are in need."

He went out the door, half regretting that he did not stay the night as she'd offered, and walked away, enjoying being on the street without being mobbed.

"Now…" Ainz said to himself, "to enjoy a little of this city."

He enjoyed walking the streets as the publicly renowned, feared, revered, Sorcerer King. However anonymity had its own pleasures, he strolled the streets with nobody giving him a second look, he stopped by a shop and bought himself a bit of jerky, a little basket of chips, and a sweet roll, then took a seat at a table in a public space to enjoy himself.

He turned away from his table and engaged in a little idle people watching. Elves, dwarves, even a few giants walked the streets, but armed and armored goblins were the most common sight, they walked in ordered ranks of eight, keeping security tight and the population safe. He recognized them immediately as the ones Enri had summoned with the horn of the goblin general.

He watched for quite some time, until he finished his basket of chips and set it behind him, he reached around after that, grasping for the sweet roll, his hand tapped around the table, but when he didn't find it, he turned to look. It was gone. Someone had stolen his sweet roll.

He was feeling his fury rise like an Unrelenting Force, until he saw that a few feet away, a small child, sweet roll in hand, was being dragged over to his table by a very embarrassed mother and father.

"Excuse us, Sir." The father, a nearly middle aged man wearing common clothing and sporting a thick beard and friendly blue eyes, said to him.

"Ah, yes?" Ainz asked cautiously.

"Our little one here seems to have gotten ahold of your dessert, and we've come to return it to you." The mother, a younger woman with reddish hair and a face that had turned almost beet red itself, said to him.

The child was squalling and flailing, shouting about not wanting to give up his treat that he'd found.

Ainz looked at them blankly for just a moment, and then burst out laughing, he touched his chest as he tried to catch himself, the entirety of it was just too absurd for anger. "It's alright, it's only a sweet roll, what am I going to do, report it to a guard? Let the little one have it, just this once, as my present to him, he seems to want it more than I did." He smiled indulgently and the parents bowed appreciatively.

"Thank you, I'm a fletcher at the shop down the street, if you should require arrows anytime soon, I will give you a discount as a show of my gratitude for your kindness for this to my little one." He gave an uncomfortable open mouthed smile, and Ainz waved it away with another laugh.

"Think nothing of it my good man. I appreciate your honesty, the little one is just too small to know better. You two will teach him well, I'm sure." Ainz said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Yes, we will do our best, after all, we have to live up to the standard of justice set by our god. Anything less would be unacceptable, and the sacred word tells us of the importance of training our children well." The boy's mother said in the calm, peaceful voice of someone utterly serene in their beliefs and behavior.

"You're followers of the Sorcerer King's faith?" Ainz asked curiously.

"We are." The father said, "We've actually come here because of it, Pope Neia Baraja is visiting the city's great temple this week, and we were going to ask for her blessing on our child, it is said that a child blessed by her hand will have great luck for the rest of their days."

"Really?" Ainz asked with a raise of his eyebrows. "Perhaps I should visit the temple myself then, and see if I can get a chance at meeting the pope for myself." He smiled confidently.

"We wish you the same luck we wish for our child." The boy's mother said generously, her face becoming fairer as the blush of her previous embarrassment faded away.

"Thank you." Ainz said, "Now if you'll excuse me, I do believe I'll go buy another sweet roll." He smiled wryly at the child that was now happily munching on the frosting covered treat. That prompted the father to regain his embarrassed expression, and he held out a copper coin to Ainz. "For what my child managed to… 'find'." He said apologetically, and when Ainz nodded and took the coin, he picked up their boy and walked away.

"Now this one, I am not going to let anyone steal." He said, wondering if the sweets were as good as the chips. He stood in line patiently, bought another, and took a bite as he walked away, a symphony of sweet flavor exploded on his tongue. 'Oh by god that is good. I'll have to remember this place.' He thought to himself and paused to look at the sign to commit the name to memory. "Arownyous's EXtraordinary Adventurous Treats," he said aloud, "Odd name but damn good food. Damn good indeed. Now, off to see about meeting up with Neia." He thought out loud, and walked down the street with a spring in his step.

**AN: Yeah I've been busy on this one, it has been enjoyable one to write and it is just one of those creative days. :) Enjoy the references that I'm SURE some of you saw a few of them. There are lots of references to plays, books, old movies, mythology, religions, history and historical figures, throughout my work, usually two or three per chapter at least... but every now and then the straight gamer geek comes out and you get the ones I put in today. Leave a review if you like the work or have some constructive criticism. If you're one of those ones planning to send a message saying to 'stop writing' or 'leave the fandom' in some form or fashion, use copy paste so you don't waste energy typing it. Ain't happening. Might just write another chapter before the day is done, because fuck it, why not? :D Feel free to join the Overlord Fanfiction discord if you're a writer or a reader, both are welcome as long as you're not a raging dick. ;)**


	5. Confrontations

A Heart for a King

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 5:

...Nazarick…

Vanysa walked with Demiurge down the hall, her paramour had been a significant part of her life since the day of her death when he'd dragged her tortured corpse out of a river in the Roble Holy Kingdom just before the official start of the War for the New World. The day she'd come back to life, incarnated as a demoness of vengeance, his was the second face she'd seen after that of her master. As time had gone on, she'd worked hard, proved her talent as a man breaker, as a deal maker, and as a research assistant. Each time she proved herself to him, she felt him soften a little more towards her until the fateful day she'd demanded an answer as to what she was and what he would do with her if he were permitted free reign to do with her as he wished. The day she'd lain atop his body, preparing for physical pain or emotional pain, he'd kissed her and thereafter they had embraced and she had felt pleasurable pain. That had been eleven years earlier.

So now walking with him always pleased her, especially when they were going to hunt prey, which was where they were currently bound. However there was one thing she felt she had to do before going to the office they frequently shared, and that required a break from her favorite sort of walk. "I'll follow you to your office shortly, there is just one place I need to go first." She said in a pleasant voice.

It wasn't hard for the brilliant demon to draw his own conclusions on that matter, particularly when he saw which way she was going. "Very well, but don't take long." He said, he didn't mind. While he counted both Shalltear and Albedo to be comrades, his own intelligence was such that if he had to pick the one who should create the first born of Nazarick's ruler and thereby be his 'first wife' it was an easy choice to favor the Overseer of the Guardians, whose intellect rivalled his own.

Vanysa waved behind her without looking back as she made her way down the hall, it wouldn't be that long before Lady Albedo was released from her confinement, and the demoness of vengeance wanted her to waste not a moment of time, lest Shalltear gain the leg up and find some way to seduce the Sorcerer King first.

Soon she was at the door of the Guardian Overseer's private chambers. While they'd had their differences, since Vanysa had endorsed Albedo, revealed by accident her own infatuation with Demiurge, and had a few occasions to collaborate in common cause, they had found a measure of 'friendly utility' with one another. Vanysa would suggest tasks for Albedo that kept her close to His Majesty, where she was fit for them, and likewise she would suggest Shalltear for tasks that took her farther from the tomb, but at which she could succeed. If Lord Ainz minded these kinds of harem politics, or even noticed them, she never saw any indication. And so for that reason she felt comfortable with what she was doing now.

She knocked on Albedo's door. "Lady Albedo, may I enter?" She asked deferentially.

"Yes, come in, but wait in the antechamber." Albedo said in a frustrated tone of voice.

Vanysa opened the door, entered, and closed it quietly behind her as she planted herself in front of it.

Albedo came out of the bedroom still hugging a body pillow of the Sorcerer King which was… Vanysa had to admit, very, very well made. The room was covered in things made for children that had yet to be born, from clothes to stuffed toys to representations of the Sorcerer King. As soon as she saw Vanysa's face, Albedo knew something was going on. She stood stock still, shamelessly naked but for the long dark hair that hung down over her shoulder.

"What is it?" She asked gravely, anxiously of the demoness.

Vanysa spoke in a quiet, even tone. "Lady Albedo, you recall that I stated my endorsement of you as Lord Ainz's first wife, yes?"

"I do. And I have noticed your hidden hand at work, suggesting various assignments for me that put he and I into close personal contact." Her tone was clipped but appreciative, Vanysa felt more comfortable.

"Then if you remember that, then I must ask that you remain calm for what I am going to tell you next, you will be allowed to leave here soon anyway, but I don't want you to be too long in finding out what has happened since you were confined." Vanysa kept her voice neutral, calm, and slow.

Albedo's heart began to pound. "Remember," Vanysa said, raising a finger in caution, "if you disobey him, you may undo your progress, so please remain here until the clock strikes twelve. I will tell you everything, so again, please remain calm."

Albedo's eyes went hard. But she nodded slowly. "Speak."

"My Lady, Demiurge and I have, for some time, been working on an item that would allow Lord Ainz to change his fundamental being, the goal was to turn him into an Angel Lord, a life giving being, in the hopes that he would be able to… perhaps, produce an heir and access divine magic. Our last experiment was on the human who was responsible for my death. It succeeded, and so we tried it on Lord Ainz, the item worked, but not as intended." She said slowly, taking a deep breath, Albedo's chest began to rise and fall farther, faster with a mix of hope and anxiety as the fury spoke. She then approached Vanysa and put her hand under the demoness's chin and tilted her face up, exuding intoxicating pheromones that befuddled Vanysa's mind.

"Go on." She said in a dangerously calm voice.

"Lord Ainz is fine but, the object, it turned him into a human being." She said quickly.

Albedo dropped her hand away and stepped back, heedless of her nakedness, her wings began to tremble.

"The good news is, we think he may now be able to reproduce, and it seems he has most, if not all his power, we aren't sure of that." Vanysa said, unable to keep a measure of annoyance out of her voice at the uncertainty.

Albedo's face began to contort into a ravenous smile.

"However… he has chosen to go out of the tomb and see the world through his 'new' eyes." Vanysa said, taking special care not to mention the information she had on his original form. "Lady Shalltear has gone in pursuit of him, in an attempt to seduce him first and win him for herself, if she is the first to bear an heir to him, I do not need to tell you what that means." Vanysa said in a calm, collected manner, trying not to notice the sensuous scent of desire being exuded from Albedo and finding it impossible.

The succubus frowned. "How did she know where to go?"

Vanysa frowned. "I told her."

The succubus looked at her in fury. "Why?!" She snapped.

"She is a Guardian, my 'title' despite my intelligence work and other tasks is 'general assistant', if a Guardian asks me a question, I am obligated to answer it 'truthfully'." Vanysa said frankly.

Albedo noticed the special emphasis that Vanysa placed on the word 'truthfully'. She smiled wickedly, "We will deal with the issue of your rank later. For now though… you kept something back, without lying, didn't you?"

Vanysa's smile was no less wicked in turn. "I did. While I told her Lord Ainz did not say who he was going to see, I did not tell her that I had concluded that on my own. Lady Shalltear only knows his destination city and what he looks like, she does not know where in the city that he went. If you do… well even with her 'head start' you have a chance to 'catch up' to her and perhaps find him first." She said, before explaining her conclusions and her reasoning in full as to where he was going.

Albedo's smile broadened. "You have been… useful." She said. It was perhaps the highest praise she could offer, and Vanysa took it gracefully with a bowing of her head.

She then explained in detail what she had concluded about his travel plans, taking special care to inform the Guardian Overseer that she had not been violating orders of any sort, but was only following them by providing this information to whosoever asked it within the tomb. After she was done, she reached down into her pocket and withdrew a piece of paper and handed it over to Albedo.

"I am not much of an artist, but this is a rough sketch of what he looks like now. I don't know how long he plans to stay in any of the places he wants to visit, so you may need that in order to find him afterwards. This is all the help I can provide you, My Lady. After I leave, I will go with Demiurge to hunt for the materials we need to make an item to return Lord Ainz to his former state. It will take two weeks, by our rough estimate. After we have those, it will take a month to craft the item, so you have six weeks to find him, seduce him, and bear Nazarick an heir from his body. After we've got what we need and we restore him, it may be a hundred years before we try this with him again." Vanysa said emphatically.

Albedo frowned at that. "A hundred years… then I must move quickly." She said, and began to throw on her clothing.

"I wish you luck, Lady Albedo." Vanysa said with sincere politeness.

Vanysa turned and opened the door to walk out, just as she did so, Albedo looked up at her and said a clipped, short, "Thank you." The demoness of vengeance bowed her head in quiet acknowledgement, and walked out, closing the door behind her. She then rushed off to meet with Demiurge, within the hour they would be scouring the Sorcerous Empire for the kind of power that they needed for the work they intended. It was going to be a very busy few weeks.

...City of Carne Village…The following morning...

Having stayed at a small inn overnight, he awoke bright and rested, he very much enjoyed his first real sleep in many years. Now in the full glory of morning, walking the city that he had reshaped in his image was a pleasant activity. The Grand Matriarch, General 'Hard Eyes' Enri Emmot-Bareare, had left her own mark on its institutions and organizations, and her own ideas of community and common good and contribution from her time as a simple peasant in a village where everybody had to work together, left its mark on the local culture.

Under her influence, it was considered shameful to do nothing while someone within sight struggled with a heavy burden. If a home burned down, the entire block would donate something to the rebuilding even while the city itself oversaw it's reconstruction. Her history as a trader in the village goods had even left its mark on commerce. Ainz watched as a goblin haggled with a dwarf.

"I'll give you four silver for that." The goblin said, pointing to a knife.

"No, no I'll need at least ten silver." The dwarf replied.

"I cannot do more than six silver." The goblin answered confidently, holding up the coins bearing the face of the Sorcerer King.

"Well, I cannot take less than eight silver." The dwarf maintained earnestly.

"It takes the very food from my mouth, but I will give you seven silver." The goblin said, adding an extra coin.

"Done." The dwarf agreed, taking six, and then handing the goblin back the extra coin, saying "I do not wish to cheat you."

After which the goblin slid two more coins over and said, "Oh no, it is I who do not wish to cheat you." After each proudly insisted they had gotten the better part of the bargain, each tossed the extra coins into a Black Justice temple donation box kept at various merchant shops, the goblin walked away with the knife, the merchant kept the other six coins, and both walked away happy. Each proud that they were the superior negotiator and in turn glad to see they had bought, and sold, to a person of such generosity to the temple in which they worshipped the Sorcerer King in their favored aspect.

Ainz wanted to laugh at the scene as he'd seen it unfold, but the truth is he was too proud to laugh, the character on display showed both community spirit, trust, pride, and generosity. This 'New World' agreed with him.

It was an easy morning stroll of his favorite sort, the innkeeper had happily informed him of the services that the Pope was giving that day, and Ainz was confident he could wrangle some time with her without stepping out of his 'Herm' persona. He wondered how she'd look to him with his emotions fully intact. His years of guidance and her abject devotion and love for him had not been unrequited, entirely outside the scope of his intentions, he'd gradually come to a filial affection for her even as an undead. How would he feel, now that he could feel 'everything?

It was a question that bothered him more than it should have. Anxiety, it too was an emotion he could feel now, and as he turned the question over and over in his mind, he felt it weigh on him. How if he felt nothing, would he feel guilt over that? Would looking into the eyes of the endless dark, the eyes of terror that had called down wrath, pain, and death upon armies, and feel the same fear as others did? Her expression had grown harder and and more fierce since he'd first laid eyes on her. Yet even then, at their first encounter, without the depth of human emotion, he had called her eyes scary in his mind and turned his face away from her so as to not see them. Would he fear the one who loved him as a father? Would he be forced to turn his face away again? It was unpleasant to contemplate. This was all the more true, because she was who she was now, because of him.

Each question asked in anxiousness that went unanswered, created a new question in its wake as it passed, and the wake in the sea of thoughts and feelings grew ever greater until they were like a tsunami inside his mind. He suddenly found himself missing his emotional dampener, it was all… just too much.

He had to stop in his walk to the temple. He looked around and found a park bench, one of his many 'innovations' was public seating and little patches of green for people to enjoy, scattered throughout the city were paths and patches of nature tended and protected by both the living and the undead. He sat folded one leg over the other and stretched out his arms along the back of the bench. He took a long deep breath in through his nose, and exhaled it out his mouth as he looked up at the endless blue sky. This reminded him of Blue Planet, Ainz wondered if his old friend was still on forums railing against the ruin of his world. Was he even alive? Blue Planet had left years before the end and had never returned. Had he come back after all, but appeared somewhere else, some when else? That again turned his thoughts to his other friends, and all they'd meant to him.

That in turn brought him back to who he was going to see now. As an undead Skeleton he had first raised her from the dead simply because he'd put effort into her. But she'd gone so far for him, such fervent loyalty could not be denied it in return. But the same depth she'd offered up no matter the risk to her own heart, he had been unable to return thanks to his inhibitor. So, a wonder came upon him. 'Am I going to meet my daughter for the very first time?' In a very real sense, he felt that was surely the case. "What do I even say?" He asked himself aloud, looking around as if to find answers he did not think were there.

He looked around with such intensity, without really seeing anything, that he didn't notice as a little girl approached and stood in front of the bench to his right, staring at him with a finger on her cheek and small, narrow eyes.

She stared at him with such intensity of her own that eventually he sensed it and looked down at her. "Hi there." He said.

"Hi." She said, and went back to staring.

"Do I have something on my face?" He asked the girl, who he estimated to be of about five, and touched the side she was looking at.

"Uh huh." She said.

"What?" He asked, rubbing gently.

"Scaredness." She said, "Somethin' scary round here?" She asked.

He was befuddled for a moment. Until he realized she was speaking of his expression, he laughed. "No, I just have to 'do' something that is a little scary to me, and I'm thinking of how to do it."

"Ohhhh." She said with the sage voice of a child who has understood something. "Whatcha gotta do?" She asked, completely indifferent to the social boundaries that normally kept back such questions.

"Talk to someone." He said shortly.

"You scared now?" She asked thoughtfully.

"No. Why?" He asked, his befuddlement returned.

"B'cause we talkin now, why this not but that is?" She asked, her narrow eyes reminded him vaguely of Neia. He smirked a little, even if her dark hair and the rest of her features were completely different.

He folded his arms in his lap. "Because she's… well she's kind of a daughter, but I was different then. Now, I don't know quite how I'll feel, or what I should say to her."

She thought that over for a moment and then said, as if offering the wisdom of the ages, "When my daddy talks to me, if he's gotta say scary things, he holds my hand so I don't get scared."

Ainz chuckled, "That's nice, but this is different. I did some… things I shouldn't have done, and put things on her that saw her get hurt very badly. I didn't mean for it to happen that way, but how I was then, I couldn't see it. So now I'm seeing her for the first time and…" He shook his head, she was looking confused.

"If you do something bad, you gots to say sorry. Then you gots to hug her." She bunched up her little hands into tiny fists and pursed her lips at him.

"Maybe you're right, maybe that's a start." He said, looking down at her intently. "You're a very smart girl."

"I know!" She said with a big, open mouthed smile.

A moment later a voice called out, "Neia, Neia come here and stop bothering the nice man." The girl looked behind her and Ainz looked up. A decently dressed couple smiled apologetically and a straw hair colored woman approached to collect the little girl.

"I hope she was no bother." She said as the girl opened her arms to be picked up, which her mother obligingly did.

"Not at all," Ainz said with bemusement, "She's a precocious child. I assume she's named after the pope?"

The woman nodded, "Yes, my husband and I met in one of the demihuman camps when we were younger, Neia was the first human we saw when we were freed, when this one was born…" she tapped the girl on her nose, prompting a laugh, "There was only one name we could give to her."

"Good choice." Ainz said, "I wish you a pleasant day." He said with a casual wave. "Thank you for the advice, Neia." He said, and the couple walked off and vanished around a corner. "What a pleasant little girl." He thought aloud. He enjoyed the stillness of his moment in the hustle and bustle around him. But such a thing could not go on forever. He wondered if Shalltear and Albedo had chosen to wait for him to return, or if they had come to the city to look for him. He'd been careful not to say who he was going to see, so that should buy him ample time before he moved on.

Locking the mirror up had been a good decision, ever since the noodle incident, he'd kept them away from it without his express permission. So at least they'd have to find him in the usual way, and no ardent desperate messages had come in. He sighed with relief at that, he was in no mood to make excuses.

Finally up he got and started walking the rest of the way to the temple. He knew the way quite well, it was the single largest temple to him in the world in terms of sheer area, though the one in Hoburns was taller, the one in the elf Kingdom claimed to be the most beautiful… a fact the dwarves of both mountain ranges disputed, but they spent more time arguing with each other than anyone else. The one in Arwintar boasted the largest donations, and the one in Re-Estize claimed… he could not remember in the moment, but every temple claimed to exceed all others in some fashion. But the City of Carne Village's was unique, not least because it was here in the former village that he'd first shown his wrath to those who crossed him, and saved a village thereby.

His steps did not grow heavier as he came closer, when he saw the great temple, black stone and red door standing out among all other buildings nearby, he felt his breath quicken, but rather than dread, a sense of eagerness overtook him. Like he was going to see someone dearly missed.

He mounted the steps alone, it wasn't time for services yet, but he knew Neia and Skana like he knew the back of his own hand… well… his old hand, this new one was a little unfamiliar still. They were in the habit of arriving early and in secret before their 'official' arrival later. The temple was well appointed, not brightly lit yet, but it would be.

When the sun went higher in the sky, the large stained glass patterns would cast images on the floor and bathe those present in multicolored lights. Neia would speak, she would tell a story, her passion would stir the resolve of the crowd, and she would make an argument on justice. Often she would ask for someone to step forward and speak against her if they wished. It rarely happened, but those who did sometimes became priests of Black Justice themselves when she was moved by their passion and conviction.

Skana sometimes danced and called on others to do likewise, he'd watched such a thing take place in the mirror. 'Our god wishes us to be happy, therefore we should laugh, and dance, and sing, what worthy god would not call our happiness in his law, the highest praise?' Someone had said, it was a sentiment Ainz could get behind, all the more so now that he was human himself and could experience the fullness of those things again.

He made his way to the back of the hall and as if he had planned it out, he bumped into Neia, who fell hard to the floor. She looked up at him in surprise, and utter disbelief, as Ainz looked down at her in a moment of stunned, and utter silence.

**AN1: Discord server invite is: slash ArqYV5Q**

**(AN2: Shout reference out to author 'Masks They Wear' in bringing up parks, great to have you back man, this one's for you if you should ever see it.)**


	6. Tracking

A Heart for a King

_...City of Carne Village…_

Albedo's arrival 'anywhere' always got attention, however she'd long since realized that standing out was a very bad way to go about searching for anyone. It was great if you wanted to be found, not so great if you wanted to find somebody. To that end, she prepared for her journey to the city by using an illusion scroll on herself. It was unthinkable that she would not be beautiful, but the wings, horns, her relative height, were all modified. Similarly, her clothing was changed to that of a middle class woman and, against her desires, her bust size was reduced to further avoid unwanted attention. She smirked, 'I guess that flat chested lamprey has at least one advantage of her own.' She thought smugly.

She did not know 'exactly' where the Grand Matriarch lived, but finding 'her' would not be difficult. She'd changed her hair and given her face a younger look, all in all, she thought she could easily pass for a teenage girl. She caught a glimpse of herself in the fountain outside the residence, and gave herself a wink of approval with one of her now blue-green eyes. "Marvelous as always." She said to herself, and strode up to the door of the former General of the Sorcerer King.

She knocked firmly but took care not to create any damage to the door, a few moments later an elf manservant opened it. "Yes, my lady, how may I help you?" He asked with great formality.

Albedo put on the most vulnerable expression that she could, and said, "I… I am looking for someone, a man, I think he passed through this city… can you tell me, have you seen anyone like this?" She asked, and reverentially took out the picture Vanysa had drawn for her and held it out.

The elf took one look at it and his expression told Albedo she was on the right track. 'Take THAT you flat chested loli!' Albedo thought with great satisfaction.

"A moment please, let me get the mistress!" He said urgently, and after handing the picture back, he rushed away from the door. Minutes later, Enri was at the door inviting her in.

"Please, join me, I understand you're looking for someone?" She asked.

"Y-Yes, I have been looking for him for… it seems a lifetime now." Albedo said, the catch in her voice was not forced in the slightest, nor was what she said a lie, not as she saw it. Enri gestured to a chair in her dining room and turned to a servant.

"Please fetch our guesta cup of tea, and one for me as well." Enri said politely, and the maidservant departed to carry out the instructions of the mistress of the house.

When the servant was gone, Albedo sniffled a bit. "Please, tell me what you know?" She then handed the picture carefully over to the former commander of armies.

"Well, I'm sorry, ah… I didn't get your name?" Enri said uncomfortably as she took it and looked down at the half decent drawing of Herm. Crude, but definitely him.

"Oh, er, I'm Perse." Albedo said as sweetly as she could muster.

"Well, I'm sorry Perse… but Herm isn't here. I took him in, fed him, let him use the bath, gave him two pairs of clothes, some money and some food. I offered to let him stay the night, but he said he wanted to be moving on. He was going to the Re-Estize Kingdom to see his family."

"Are you his…" Enri began to ask.

"Daughter, yes, he's been gone for so long…" She said softly, lowering her head as the servant came and placed the tea in front of her.

Enri nodded solemnly. "He was a soldier under me, I could never forget one of my uniforms. I saw so much sadness in his face, when he came down from the bath, he'd obviously been deep in his memories." Enri reached out and took Perse's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I'm sure he didn't leave you because he wanted to, I've seen this happen before."

"You have?" Albedo said in surprise.

Enri gave her a weak smile of acknowledgement, "Yes, soldiers go off to war as one person, and come back as something else, they feel a burden on their loved ones, shame for their mental scars, or maybe they just don't know how to sit still anymore without going mad, so they set out alone rather than be a burden or a threat. Even one of the greatest figures of the war was haunted by it and if she could be, anyone could be. Never think his absence meant he took his love with him, I'm sure your father…" Enri paused as the memory of her own father's demise as he fought to save his children, flew to mind once again. She let it go once again, as she had learned to do so that his death would not rule her life, and then she continued.

"I'm sure your father thought of you every day, sometimes people only see the harm they do, not the good. I can only imagine how hard it has been for you, but he's out there somewhere, thinking he's going home to you, and you missed him here by only a narrow margin. I offered him a carriage, but he refused, saying he preferred the open air. If you move quickly, I have no doubt you'll catch up to him."

Perse smiled radiantly. "Thank you, you've been so very, very helpful."

"If you like, I could contact the city guards, we could put everyone in the city on alert to find him for you, I spent a long time ordering men and women to their deaths, ordering them to reunite a family would be a joyful change." Enri offered, and clasped Perse's hand firmly in her own.

Albedo briefly considered that option, it 'would' make finding her lord much, much easier. But Shalltear was out there somewhere, it would alert her as well. That was a problem. So 'Perse' gave her head a gentle shake. "Your offer is as kind as can be, and I'll never forget it… but I have sought to hold him again for many years, I have to do this myself, to reach him myself, to let him see me as he always should have, so he knows he doesn't have to be alone anymore." Albedo's words might have been meant to be part of her deception, but as they spilled out of her, she recognized the truth of them, and as if she knew, Enri stood slowly and helped her to her feet as they finished off their tea.

"Then I wish you well, he did ask that he be permitted to come by my home again if he were ever in the area, and if he does, I will let him know that his daughter is out there, looking for him." Enri said warmly as they walked to the door.

"Thank you again." Perse said sincerely as she was escorted back to the front entrance, let out, and then the door shut behind her.

"Progress." Albedo said confidently, and walked away.

_...The Red Door Tavern in Carne…_

Shalltear was quite aware that she was 'not' the most brilliant figure in Nazarick, of all the failures and setbacks there had been, hers had been the first and arguably the worst, since she actually tried to kill her master. However she did not think she was 'stupid' it was just a matter of comparison. She was not well suited to the deep thinking of Albedo or Demiurge, she did not have the brilliant unfathomable mind of her master. Even the demoness had proven to have an inquisitive and deductive mind that had allowed her to at least temporarily outsmart the guardian.

However… to compare her to geniuses and dismiss her was to overlook her own talents. Vampires were born hunters. 'I know what you're thinking you big boobed bimbo. You're expecting me to tear through this city on a rampage and get myself into trouble… again. Not happening, I've learned my lessons and learned them well. Barrelling ahead is a good way to make mistakes, I must be more subtle." She thought things over to herself, and casually ordered a cup of fresh blood.

Nobody thought anything of it, vampires might not be common, but in the years since the Sorcerer King's rule had begun, acceptance of night creatures had become commonplace, especially in the City of Carne Village, where vampires openly served and fought alongside humans. Here the best relations in the New World were had between the various races under his rule, though it was emphasized to the other New World leaders that they must take steps to integrate the former outsiders into the fabric of their societies with equal standing to citizens, it was a slow process that was only just bearing fruit in the more remote regions.

But here… Shalltear could drink blood and nobody would bat an eye at anything but her otherworldly beauty.

So she sat on a stool and drank. She put her back to the bar and looked around, she had a dim view of most humans. Or if she cared to admit it, which she sometimes did, a dim view of everyone who was not of Nazarick. The one exception to this was the growing fondness she had for the arts. For plays, music, paintings, sculptures, as these had become more prolific she'd even taken the time to visit museums run by mortals, or see their shows to enjoy some idle entertainment when time on a mission allowed.

The bard who was currently singing was actually quite good, he was singing an epic of General Enri in Ikari. She listened in, mildly entertained. She was quite smart enough to realize she wouldn't hear a story about herself here, Shalltear understood quite well that local heroes were always the rage, wherever one went. That turned her mind back to Zaryusu, the first person to ever speak harshly to her outside of her comrades in Nazarick, he'd laid into her pretty hard about her shortcomings and neglect of the army.

She smirked at the way she'd surprised him, and moreover, surprised herself. One by one she'd learned every task he'd set her to, patient and thorough and always hearkening back to the one thing she would follow, the words of her beloved Lord Ainz. It had not been easy, but she had learned, and her master had actually praised her, and rewarded her with a kiss on her cheek at her request… well she hadn't requested the cheek… but it was a start. The memory of Albedo fuming was almost as cherished as the feel of his face against hers.

A man sat down next to her, he paid her little mind save for a stolen glance, she looked him over, he was the eighth person in the last hour, he wasn't well dressed, he was rather dirty in fact, he bore the look of a day laborer. He had the 'paid his bills but not well off' kind of feel to him. She set her cup behind her and called for the bartender. "Another please." She said politely, and a young woman with very pronounced veins in her arms approached with a greedy smile. As her blood was being extracted, Shalltear wondered just how much she was being paid for this service. 'Probably a lot.' She thought.

She turned to the man beside her while she waited for her cup, and took a coin from her purse, it was a solid gold coin, commonly referred to as 'Gowns' as it bore his face. She put the coin flat on the bar and slid it over underneath the man's nose.

He looked at it with wide eyes and then over to the grand beauty of the Lady Shalltear Bloodfallen. "What…?" He asked in eager disbelief.

"I want someone found. Someone in this city, but I don't want him to quite know I'm looking." She answered.

"So… what do you want me to do?" He asked in confusion.

"If you want this coin, you will let me hypnotize you, you'll forget this entire conversation, but if you see the man I'm looking for, you'll come here and report it to me immediately." She said, leaning over and smiling enticingly.

"And after he's seen? Or if I never see him?" He asked hesitantly.

Shalltear sat up and shrugged, "Then nothing, you keep the coin, and go on with your life as if this had never happened, it will not affect your life in any way. If you do see him, I'll add a platinum coin to that one."

"This isn't going to be… breaking any laws is it? You're not going to hurt this person, right?" He asked with further concern.

Shalltear shook her head vigorously and put a handful of silver gowns behind her as her cup was served up. "Absolutely not, he means everything to me and I would never hurt him. I swear it by the Sorcerer King."

The laborer swallowed hard, swearing by the king was not a small thing, oathbreakers who used his name and betrayed it, had a history of things going very wrong in their lives thereafter.

"I see. Then I accept." He said and took the coin and pocketed it.

"Then… Look into my eyes…" She said duskily, and putting her fingers under his chin, she turned her blood red gaze into his. He had very soft brown eyes, praise worthy in a rough looking figure even, but that was of no consequence. The hypnosis took hold, she then showed him the picture she had and gave him his instructions. She then disengaged her control over him and he relaxed.

"I think I'll go for a stroll." He said and stood up to stretch after finishing the beer he had in front of him.

"Do have a pleasant night." She said to the extra pair of eyes she'd acquired for herself.

The bartender approached. "Are you going to be doing that to all my customers?" He asked in a gruff, annoyed tone of voice.

"No." She replied politely.

He relaxed.

"Only the ones who have the right look and who sit over this way, who I can pay for the service." She added.

He tensed up again. "What is 'the right look?'" He asked.

"Common sort, laborers go everywhere, merchants and others are very niche, only go a few places, but laborers move throughout the city. They're the only way to get good coverage." She said confidently, and the bartender sighed heavily.

"Miss, I don't know who you're looking for, but you've cost me a number of sales this evening and…" He started to say, then stopped when she slid two platinum Gowns from the customer side of the bar, to the back side where he stood.

"I'm sorry, you were saying something? I didn't mean to interrupt…" She said sweetly and began to inch them back towards herself.

"Oh, I was saying how you should please continue to buy hypnosis privileges over every customer who seats themselves near you and please don't hesitate to let me know if you need anything else." He said hastily, his eyes glued to the platinum coins barely covered by two dainty white fingers.

She smiled. "I thought you might have been saying something like that. Funny how I almost misheard you, isn't it?"

"Yes, very funny." He said with a laugh as her fingers lifted off the coins and he snatched them up before going over to take care of someone else at the other end. Another man sat next to Shalltear who looked similarly ideal. She smiled over at him, it was going to be a productive and pleasant time here. 'Progress…' She thought happily as she slid a gold coin under his nose.

_...Black Justice Temple…_

Neia looked up from the floor. 'How… the hell… am 'I' the one who ended up on the damn floor?!' She wondered. When people bumped into her, 'they' were the ones that usually fell.

"Are you going to offer to help me up… or just stare at me?" Neia said sardonically. The man who had knocked her down looked sheepish, and held out a hand, she grasped and let him help pull her up.

Ainz looked at her still, as if in a brief daze, in a moment every single memory of her came rushing back. From the day she'd offered her head if she'd offended him, to the day she'd nearly died when she called him 'father' for the first time… and all the way up to the present. All the pride, all the shame, all the affection, everything… all flooded through his brain in an instant and overwhelmed him.

He couldn't muster up words, but she was looking at him as if she were contemplating what to say herself. She too, had lost herself in thought, she was staring at him intently.

His eyes found hers, the whorling darkness as if night's cloak was made within her gaze, was not present just now. But they were still the renowned eyes of terror. Yet as he looked at them, he felt none of that. All he saw was the face of a girl he loved like a daughter. In the old world, he'd had no children of his own, never even had a date to get a chance to make some.

Yet here in this one, well everything was different. She was staring at him intently, he felt like she was searching for something other than what to say. He was just about to speak, when she did. "Please, come with me."

She didn't wait for a response, she turned and walked back the way she'd come, he surmised she was used to not having to wonder if she'd been obeyed. As long as she'd been in a commanding role, well she had plenty of time to get used to it. On this occasion at least, he wasn't inclined to argue.

She went briskly down the dimly lit hall, turned right down another short hall, and stopped at a door. She opened it confidently and walked in. Skana was seated behind a desk.

Ainz looked at the famous sword dancer, and saw not a hero, but a daughter-in-law, the wife of his child, the woman who had saved Neia's life, saved her spirit, saved her from herself and going over into the brink of madness, she had done what he could not, and the swelling in his breast redoubled, his heart pounded a mile a minute.

"Skana," Neia said lovingly, "could I have the office for a moment?"

"Yes of course, I'll go pick up something to eat, and return shortly." She said and picked up a mask on her way out the door.

When she was gone, the door closed, Neia looked at him for a long minute, listening for the sound of retreating steps, when they were no more, Neia went to the desk, reached into a drawer and took out a key and a scroll. She went to the door and quietly locked it. She then used a scroll of silence so that not a sound would leave the room.

When that was done, she took off her cloak, and all Ainz could do was stare at her as words formed within his heart and broke apart as meaningless things that could not express what he truly wanted her to know. He thought about the 'little Neia' that he'd encountered previously at the bench where he'd been seated.

He was still struggling when she'd hung up her cloak, turned around, and as if she were a bullet launched from a first world firearm when the trigger was squeezed, she launched herself at him.

"Father!" She shouted as loud as if it were a battle cry and she were on the walls of Prart again, her arms wrapped around him and she pressed him to herself as hard as she could.

"Neia… Neia…" He whispered, clinging to her like a lifeline. She held on tight as if she never wanted to let go, and so too, did he.

"I can't believe… but… what… how… why…?" She struggled to find the right question as she pressed the side of her face into the warmth of his chest and felt the beating of his heart.

**AN: Well, I'd love to hear what you think. So leave a review or come by the discord server listed in the author page.**


	7. Bittersweet

A Heart for a King

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 7:

...Outskirts of the Baharuth Imperial Province Azelian Mountain Range…

Vanysa found her destination easily enough, the intelligence operations she'd been running through her sandwich shops fed mountains of material back to her office through countless servers, and the operations she ran through the brothels were almost as productive. The women who worked in those essentially mined coin from cock, and the men with whom they lay often used their tongues for things other than idle pleasures when they were lazy, relaxed, and unguarded after a session with one of the employees. As a result, she considered it almost obvious that the Sorcerous Empire had a better intelligence agency than all former or neighbor nations ever had.

It was why she knew this location. A little village at the base of the mountains, it served as a trading point between the mountains housing the Dwarven province, and the former Empire. The people there were quite prosperous and had a good relationship with both groups, but… every now and then, somebody disappeared on the long road between the village and the next major settlement.

She flew high above the area, reveling as she still did, in the power to touch the sky. When the first reports had come in, she'd dismissed them as isolated incidents, but… as a precaution, she'd had some 'unique goods' sold in the village that made their way into the hands of travelers. When a traveler inevitably 'disappeared' she'd had agents scout the local pawn shops and brokers for the stolen goods. That had been the clue, that had been all she needed.

The goal was not the goods or the wealth to be gained by pilfering the dead. The goal was the travelers themselves. A goal like that could mean only three things. A madman, a serial killer, or a cult. Beasts were easy to rule out since the goods themselves were never found, and a wolf had no use for a magic sword. Finding the hide-out had been only slightly more difficult. Note where the travelers disappeared, then figure out the limits of easy travel and find geographically favorable regions, i.e. caves, hills, and so on. That led her to where she was about to be hovering above. She hoped there were a lot of them, Demiurge was beating her at three captives to her two.

She waited and looked, which for her was easy, since all she needed was for there to be 'guilt' nearby. She scanned the woods below, and for a few minutes she worried she might have guessed wrongly. That however, turned out not to be the case, she spotted someone, and he was… intoxicating. "Why hello there." She said softly to the ignorant figure.

She didn't chase him, not yet, she only 'tracked' him, following high and from behind, keeping her eyes slightly off of him so he wouldn't get the feeling that he was being watched. It took some time, but eventually he led her to where he was hiding. A small hill, it had a hatch in front of it that he exposed by simply removing a multicolored cloth that was made to look like grass. Easy to fool the casual observer, impossible to fool someone who knew it was there, and now she knew.

She swept down, gliding easily on her batlike wings, adroitly avoiding the trees and slowly tilting herself back to create the drag needed to stop herself and land comfortably. She almost laughed, it reminded her of when she was learning to fly under the 'tutelage' of Demiurge, who let her crash into trees until she… well, until she stopped crashing into trees.

Now, she did not crash into trees anymore. She walked confidently and boldly to where the trapdoor was and cast off the concealment that provided them with some nominal security. "Hmpf, amateurs, no guards out here, no alarm system over their main entrance. Probably no emergency exit either but… I guess I shouldn't risk it and take my time, better make this quick." She said to herself as she took a deep breath and opened the hatch.

The smell was musty, dank and unpleasant. "Why don't cultists ever try to make their places look and… smell, decent? Why must they always pick something that Eek might like? I swear, just once I'd like to find a cultist who works out of… I don't know… a nice hotel, or even a musty barn." She grumbled in annoyance, and then descended the rickety steps.

"And for that matter, why are none of them ever former 'carpenters'? Is it a guild thing where nobody can do any wood working? Or are they just all fans of bad novels where all evil people like mossy dank pits for some reason?" She expressed her annoyance to herself again and found herself in a long dark tunnel, she walked through it without fear as she looked, listened, and smelled danger. Then a thought occurred, she could have a little fun with them.

She reverted to the form of a human, and called out in her old uneducated way, "Ello th'r! Anybody in here, ah needs help, ah gots lost, weren't tryin ta break in'er nuttin, but ah done found yer hidey hole an…" She went quiet, there were rapid footfalls and shouts, a dozen. She sighed, if there were a dozen, then she'd be lucky if there were two or three magic casters of any skill. Someone of the fourth tier would work as well as two of the third, but she doubted very much that someone of fourth tier abilities would be in a place like this.

She could see faces approaching her, mostly men, a handful of women, also most of them of the older persuasion, middle aged, but not ancient. They all wore red robes that were shaded like blood.

"Girly, you walked into the wrong hole." A larger, older man said gruffly.

She put on her little 'scared peasant girl' act, and cringed back. "Oh… ahm right sorry, but ah needs help, ah gots lost, ain't no which way ta go… jus tell me 'ow ta get to town an…" She started to say more, then let out a decently acted yelp as the gruff looking fellow grabbed her wrist and squeezed.

"Oh, please let go", she pretended to struggle, "Are you bandits, cultists, what?" She asked with seeming urgency.

"Cultists, hmpf, figures you ignorant outsiders would use such a dismissive term for the masters of death." He said as he lifted his arm and raised her up to her tip-toes.

She gasped, "You're all… fourth tier magic casters?" She asked in awe.

He snorted, "Of course not. Stupid girl." He said and shook her. Something was feeling off.

"Just you then?" She put a faux expression of amazement and fear on her face. He preened.

"Yes, just me." He was as proud of that as he was of all the things he was guilty of.

"Oh." She stopped struggling, "I guess you get to live for now then." She said calmly, and just as he was processing the odd thing she'd said, her wings popped out of her back, her fingers grew talons, and she snapped her arm down, slashing his face and taking an eye. As she needed him alive, she thrust him hard enough at the wall to send him into a state of unconsciousness.

She then went after the others who were reacting in surprise and horror as the demoness tore through their ranks like a hot knife through butter. Those bearing the weapons a non-magic caster would use, received quick deaths, however anyone else, she sent spiralling into unconsciousness by either choking them into it or slamming them into the stone. Her work was over in short order.

When it was finished, she dusted her hands off and said in a satisfied sigh, "Top this one, Demi." Then she went about the business of hauling them out to return them to Nazarick. Their magic skills would be evaluated, and the 'winners' kept secure until it was time to use them. "Well, that is some progress at least." She said smartly, when the last one was carried through the gate and she made her way out of Neuronist's workspace and back to Demiurge's office to work out another target.

...City of Carne Village...Temple of Black Justice…

"It is… difficult to explain." Ainz answered hesitantly, refusing to break his grip. "But… how did you know it was me?"

She leaned back and looked up at him with her terrifying eyes looking every bit the human she was. 'Not terrible at all.' He thought to himself.

"Father, I will always know you. Whatever your disguise, nobody else, not anybody else, not in my whole life, has ever looked at me like you did. How could I ever mistake you for anyone other than yourself?" She asked.

She smirked a bit, "Knocking me down didn't hurt though… well, other than the rear I landed on. I'm Neia Baraja, when people bump into me, 'they' fall down." She laughed a little bit, "Lakyus and I had a similar accident awhile back, and though she didn't fall, neither did I. That meant you had to be much, much more powerful, and I know everybody like that. So I knew you had to be from Nazarick before my butt hit the ground." The laughter vanished as she explained that far and she leaned into him again.

"But… as soon as I saw your eyes, the way you looked at me, only a father does that, I've seen enough good parents to know that much." She was tranquil, quiet for a little while, she just savored the warmth of his body against her own.

"Neia… My Neia… I should have known you would recognize me." He said.

"This… isn't an illusion, or a dream I'm having, is it? If it's a dream, I don't want to wake up." She uttered in a voice as small as if she were a child again.

"No. The beating heart is mine, the rise and fall of my chest is as real as we are. There are…" He sighed and let his hand stroke her hair. "You know that as an undead, everything I felt was kept in check, don't you?"

"I do, I mean, I didn't, but I figured it out, the sudden calm after an outburst, I eventually realized that some aspect of what you were held you back from the wellspring of what other living beings could experience. If our feelings were rivers, yours was permanently dammed up." She said, explaining what she'd come to understand.

"So you know then, why I…" He started to say and she put a finger to his lips.

"Whatever you are, like most men, you don't seem to know what to say or when to say it." She smiled winsomely. "Yes, I knew, I understood that your feelings for me, the way you saw me, was limited compared to my own. But I didn't care. But now… can you?" She asked, leaving the question hanging.

"Yes. Yes." He said, "The dam has, to use your analogy, burst. I can properly embrace those things long held back. So many things to say…" He said, stammering out as he grasped for words.

"First though…" She interrupted, "Is this… permanent?" Neia asked tentatively.

Ainz thought carefully about how to answer that. "If nothing were done, I believe so." He said slowly, and then he explained the experiments that Demiurge and Vanysa had been conducting to create an item that could change his race, allowing him to become an Angel Lord. He also explained what seemed to have gone wrong, without mentioning he had been human to start with, and the process they were undertaking to create a new one to change him back.

When his explanation was finished, she asked, "Do you… have to change back? Can't you stay like this?" She asked in a vulnerable voice.

"Neia, you know I can't do that, a human body has its… perks. Like being able to feel for you all the things my former body held in check. I don't want to give this up. However you know better than anyone that its weaknesses do not set me in a position to remain within it. I have to go back to how I was. If I were to stay as I am now, whether for you, for me, or for any other reason, I would be embracing weakness out of selfishness. What is that?" He asked her, and she buried her face in his chest again.

"It is a sin. Weakness is the sin that destroys everything and everyone." She squeezed her eyes tight and pressed her forehead against his chest and balled her fists up tight enough that they hurt. Her tears of happiness became choked and gasping. "I want you to stay like this forever, I want 'this' to last forever. If only… we had different lives, were different people, but this is how it is, isn't it?"

"It is, I could list a thousand reasons to stay as I am." He remarked as he took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh air and the light scent of the perfume his 'daughter' wore that always made her wife happy. "No, I could list ten thousand of them, and never leave the subject of how much I want to keep experiences like this one in my heart. But there is only one reason to go back. And it need only be one." He said gently.

"...And it is your duty. Doing your duty, against your own wishes, keeps you and keeps the empire strong…" Neia said, tilting her eyes up and looking through the glistening sheen of those eyes that had brought armies to their knees, "I know that father, I do… but just… a little longer. You don't have to say anything, the fact that you came here says enough. The fact that you hold me as you do, says enough, the way you look at me, says enough."

"Neia, I'm so sorry, for everything that hurt you, and for not seeing what working my…" She put two fingers to his lips.

"None of that. You aren't only 'father', you are also 'king', and you are also 'god'. To shape this world as it is meant to be, someone had to do the work. You entrusted it to me, to Skana, Demiurge, Shalltear, Vanysa, Gilcrest, Gascon, Robel, Tinamoc, Moira, and countless other names. We all followed you knowing the risks, to our lives and to our hearts." She said, sniffling lightly as she spoke. "We knew the risks, the price that might be asked of us, and we paid it willingly, 'I' paid it willingly. And except for undoing my mistakes, I'd do it all again. After all…"

She smiled sweetly, lovingly at Ainz, "Aren't we making such a wonderful world?"

"You are, you are my beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased. And in a thousand years when you…" Her face made his words stop dead on his lips.

"Father, you'll go back to being who you were, but I'm a human girl, we don't live that long, maybe I'll have a long life, maybe I'll pass tomorrow, but I'm only Neia Baraja, human. What is the goal of all life, my father?" She asked him in a shaking, trembling voice.

"Death." He answered in a muted voice.

"Have you ever known your daughter not to achieve a goal?" She said in a joking, half crying voice as she put her forehead into his chest again.

"No. No I suppose not. But I thought…" He started to stammer out, his heart was pounding so hard in his chest he thought it might kill him by itself.

"Father, the average human lives in this world for no more than forty years, I'm past thirty now, but I'm far from average. I'm still in good health, I won't be going anywhere for a long while." She said, letting her cheek press down over his heart. "So many people died under my orders, how can I shrink from the same end… the goal of all life…" She clenched her arms tight into his back.

"But I don't want to lose you at all, I don't want to lose anyone else." He said quietly, "Am I doomed to lose my champion, my child?"

"When the time comes, you can lay me to rest in Nazarick, do with what remains of me as you see fit, use me as you need, I'm sure Demiurge already has all kinds of experiments lined up." She snickered darkly at that.

"But…" He began, and she put three fingers over his lips and shook her head.

"I have always followed your will father, but I beg you, unless you are at greatest need...or some lucky sonofabitch kills me again before I die naturally... when the time comes, please let me pass away. I'm not afraid now, and I won't be then. Whether it comes in six minutes, six hours, six days, six months, or even sixty years. When my time comes, it will be their turn to guide this world under your will." She whispered her words into his very heart, and gestured beyond the door.

"I was an agent of change, bleeding to remake the world. I did that, with everyone, with you. But I've changed the world into something that isn't to be mine. It will pass instead to my children, and the generations yet to come, if we work well now, they will not need to struggle, but if they do have to struggle, they will triumph. I believe in them, as I have so long believed in you." She said and looked at him again.

"If you order it… I would endure anything, but please… please don't give that order." She asked plaintively.

Ainz did not give that order, but already he could feel the horror of knowing he was going to lose her one day. "Then… let's just stay like this for a while, so I can hold on to it for the next ten thousand years." He said, trying desperately to do what his emotional inhibitor used to do for him, and finding it to be every bit as hard as he expected.

"After this, I'm supposed to speak to the congregation, but what I was going to say is gone from my mind." Neia sniffled out a laugh again.

"Well, you could always do what I do?" He suggested with a wry and bitter smile.

"What is that?" She asked curiously.

"Wing it." He said flatly.

**AN: This has been a commissioned work. Next up tomorrow will be a chapter or two of 'Angel Bound' had planned on finishing it tonight, but something about my work on it just feels 'clunky' right now so it isn't ready. I'm not going to put my name, even a pseudonym, on garbage, so I'll tinker with it till it works. Reviews of course are more than welcome, I look forward to hearing from you. **


	8. Parental Pride

A Heart for a King

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 8:

...Black Justice Temple…

They just held on to each other, each one wishing it could go on indefinitely, each one knowing it could not. "Father, your heart, it's beating so fast…"

"The better for you to feel it while you can, my dear." Ainz said, "It will be gone again in a few weeks, so I have to give you as many beats as I possibly can before it is taken away."

"Oh…" She said in a low voice. She nuzzled up against his warmth, enjoying the feeling while she could.. "Do you think you'll remember what this felt like?" Neia asked anxiously.

"I think I won't ever forget it, not in a hundred thousand lifetimes. I'll never have another like you." He said proudly. "I'm so… proud of everything you've become, everything you've done. Your heirs might resent how high you've set the bar." He didn't have to force the laugh anymore, it came out naturally, as did his pride in Neia.

"That is something I will carry with me right to the end." She said happily.

"Please don't speak of your end, I don't want to consider it." He pled with her, and she nodded against his chest.

"I have to get going, and I think… so do you." Neia said softly.

"I do?" Ainz asked, wondering what she meant.

She stepped back, reluctantly breaking the embrace. She wiped her eyes and nose, "Uh huh. See, if you stay with me like you are, I'm going to get weaker and weaker, and I'll give in and beg you not to go back, and worse, you might listen to me. It would make you vulnerable where you were invincible, and maybe 'someday' far, far into the future, that might not matter. But in this world as it is? No, we cannot risk you falling to anyone, even powerful as you are, the human body is still 'human'. You could get sick, be poisoned, take an arrow in the eye, even just choke on your food." She shook her head and forced her expression to become that of a hardened security professional again.

"Besides, you want to see more things and experience more things in ways you couldn't before, so go and do it. Even just this last… hour or two, has been enough to sustain my heart till it stops beating. To finally know how you truly feel, by sight, touch, tone, and feel the warmth of your embrace as I always wished I could? How could I ask more than I have already been given?"

She shook her head firmly. "I can't. This is a greater reward than being given the world itself, it strengthens me in ways I never thought I could be strengthened, but too much and I will grow weak, and I will drag you into my sin and put you at risk. I would be a terrible daughter, to do that to my father. So I'll let you wander. Go see the beautiful places of this world you've saved and remade. Experience it through our eyes and carry that memory with you when you return to your previous state. Perhaps it will be useful to you one day. But before you go…" She said, taking on a nervous expression and tapping the forefingers of her two hands together.

"Yes? Anything, name it." He said emphatically.

"Could you maybe… maybe stay and listen to me speak?" She asked hesitantly, not quite meeting his eyes, looking every inch like a child of his home world asking if their parents would be going to see them in a play.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Ainz said with a broad smile on his face.

"Father!" Neia shouted, and jumped into his arms again, wrapping her own arms around his neck, she kissed his cheek and held him in tight excitement.

Finally she had to let go again, and she reached into her desk for a few things to clean herself up.

As she did so, Ainz asked, "Are you going to tell Skana?" He asked curiously.

To his surprise, Neia shook her head with a little pursed smile on her face. "No, I think I just want this to be my secret, mine and mine alone, I don't want to share you, not that way. Maybe it is a little selfish… but I think, just this once, she'd forgive me for this."

Ainz was just processing that and was about to acknowledge the truth of the statement when Neia's face took on a suddenly sober expression, "Wait, father, did you say that Albedo and Shalltear are both aware of this?"

"They are, why?" He asked.

"Father… are you… are you planning on having a ch-child with one or… or both of them while you're like this?" Neia asked with a deep blush on her face.

"Ah… no. Not… not now." He answered uncomfortably.

"Father, did you by chance… let them know where you were going, or who you'd be seeing while here?" Neia asked.

"I told Vanysa and.. Oh. Shit." He said, his face making an expression that aligned with his tone of voice.

Neia nodded. "Yes, they'll be looking for you. Albedo would probably figure out quickly that you'll look for me at some point before you leave the city, assuming she has learned I'm here. Shalltear has grown over the years, and since I haven't heard of any rampaging vampires screaming your name, she's probably searching rationally, and will find you soon enough. Or, if they don't, they will come and question me. I am your pope, and I am one of the strongest human warriors alive today, but they are your Guardians. They outrank me and out power me. What would you have me do father?"

"Outrank you?" Ainz laughed. "Neia Baraja you did not think this through, if you are my daughter and I am the King, well what do they call the daughter of the King?"

Her face blanched for a moment. "Forgive me father, but seeing myself as a… princess… it is just a bit much." She half stammered out.

Ainz laughed again, "I'll tell you what, you tell them what you think best, and I won't hold it against you either way." He winked at her, "Just give your old man a head start by a few hours at least."

Neia winked in return, "Let it be as you say. Now, I should get going, I 'officially' arrive soon and I need to be ready to speak. Why don't you remain off to one side somewhere that you won't be noticed so you can watch, and then you can go exploring afterwards? I'll handle the Guardians when they turn up."

Ainz clapped her hard on both shoulders and looked at her with happiness, pride, and parental affection, "I couldn't ask for a better daughter."

She wiped her eyes again at what he said, and failed to suppress a sniffle, before he turned and walked out of the office to secret himself and watch her work.

Neia was glad of the mask she kept for these occasions, it let her have time to comport herself as she left the building to 'officially arrive' Skana was waiting just outside the city with both horses ready to go.

When Neia arrived and jumped up onto the magnificent horse, Skana immediately sensed Neia's emotional state, and asked gingerly, "Are you alright? What was all that about, who was he?"

Neia shook her head, "Not this time my love, I'm exercising a wifely privilege and keeping this one to myself. Nothing dangerous, just… some old business that had a truly happy ending. Let us leave it at that." She said, shutting the door on the conversation.

Skana sighed, "I guess I can't begrudge you a few secrets. As long as you, we, and everything else is OK, it won't kill me to live with one little mystery."

"No, no it won't. Now look, here comes our escort, let's take off our masks and get on with this." Neia said as they removed the masks hiding their identities and stored them away into special pockets sewn into the lining of their black cloaks.

They sat on their absurdly expensive white horses as uniformed officials approached and formed up around them. After a few words of polite greeting, they blew horns and boomed out the announcement of the Pope's arrival. The streets quickly parted and they rode under escort all the way to the temple, waving and smiling to the crowds of faithful worshippers.

Neia didn't much care for ceremony, and for that matter, while Skana could be a bit of a ham when it came to publicly dancing or other forms of performances, she didn't much care for pomp either. Still, Skana played her part, looking out with her one good eye and waving to people as they rode.

When they arrived, the great temple was already full., Tthey dismounted their horses and a few squires came and took them away while the, crowds waved and cheered., Aamong them, most especially heartening to Neia, were the uniforms of former soldiers, including many a long eared person.

Ainz could hear them shouting the names of his Pope and her wife, all the way from the deep interior of the temple, and he felt that pride in them both wash over him all over again, he was going to miss these sensations when the time came. The temple went silent as the pair went up and Neia took her place on the stage.

One thing Ainz immediately noticed, was, as he considered it further, how different they looked. In her mid-thirties, the first tiny slivers of gray had begun to appear in Skana's hair, and wrinkles of both laughter and care had begun to settle in on the women's faces. Strong as they were, the shorter lifespans of the New World had begun to tell on their bodies. It was small now, but in time it would grow, the years would exact their price, and there was nothing to be done for it. He forced the terrible thought aside, and focused his eyes on Neia.

Fully aware that her father was watching, she looked silent over the crowd, her former speech cast off like trash, she wrote a new one in her head on the spot. Her eyes swept over the crowd, bearing in them something none had ever seen in their pope before. They saw her weep, openly, loudly, proudly, but it did not diminish the power of her voice, if anything it seemed to enhance it.

"I stand before you a mortal woman, like any other, I was born, I live, I love, I have won much and lost much, I have laughed long and loud, and I have wept no less than any. And one day I will die. Behind me others will come and take my place. But before that happens, I want to tell you something. The true meaning of life, as I have found it to be." She took a long, loud, deep breath, and began to speak in earnest. "I came of age in a kingdom on the brink of destruction, a handful of soldiers were all that stood between our people and our annihilation."

She began to pace the stage, drawing eyes to her as she harangued the silent crowd.

"All of you no doubt know what happened next. I encountered the Sorcerer King, he taught me his justice and saved our people, saved me, saved perhaps, some of you. In the days after the war, when peace should have returned, corruption and cruelty reigned, and peace, so longed for, was torn apart by the largest war in all the known history of our world. Many of you, perhaps, fought in those great battles, that saw the heroes of old become villains or corpses or both. In the fire and bloodshed, I found evil's face to be all too familiar, and knew the old ways that created them could not endure. So I fought to change those ways, as did many of you. And after the last sword was sheathed, only then, only when peace, true peace, returned to the world, did I find life's meaning for myself."

Her voice became hushed, yet was undiminished as it carried over the crowd.

"I bandaged wounds, I sought to heal hearts, I sought to find room in our world for all people of all races, I found that our world was richer than we knew in ideas, strengths, justice, and wisdom. I found that the world was rich in resources, and we did 'not' have to kill one another to survive, it can provide for everyone, as long as everyone respects and labors for the common good, with no one man or woman, human or elf, beastman or demihuman, set above another in law. In carving out this peace and building bridges of understanding to allow us to share space with one another, shining a light of understanding, brotherhood and sisterhood between us all, the world has become a better place, I found my reason to be."

Her tears had slowed, as she spoke, but they had not stopped. "To shine that light of change and bring that peace of understanding between us all, that is the purpose, and the meaning of my life now, I will not tell you that this must also be yours, but I tell you that if your justice does not allow for this, then it IS NOT JUSTICE!"

"I know I will not live forever, but I will die with few regrets, so that when my time comes, and I leave this world behind me, it will be better than it was when I found it. Then all who come after, will be glad that I was here before them. Make this true for you as well, and you will have lived a meaningful and truly successful life." Her words trailed off, and she wiped her eyes and looked over to where the Sorcerer King stood, anxiously seeking his approval.

He bowed granting the approval she badly sought, realizing as he did that what she had said out there on the stage was not only for them, but also for him. Skana looked over at where her wife stood, stunned, she'd heard Neia speak before, powerfully, passionately, furiously, but never had she see her wife speak with impassioned emotions of that sort before. The crowd was enraptured as Neia left the stage, leaving it open for Skana to take her place.

Neia approached the Sorcerer King, out of sight of all others and whispered a question, "Did I make you proud out there, father?"

"You did. I believe, if you had not already been a legend, that would have made you one. I think what you said out there will be recorded and written down to be repeated far, far into the future, such that you were not speaking only to them today, but to people not yet even born." Ainz said, his voice thick with longing.

He did not want to go, he didn't want to leave her.

Neia impulsively pulled him in again. "One more for me. While you're still… warm, and can still savor this." Her cheek nuzzled against him as he welcomed the touch and held her in turn. He couldn't have refused her if he'd wanted to, and he definitely did not want to.

Finally he took her head in his hands and tilted her face back, and kissed her on the forehead. When she craned her neck up to look at his face, she sensed what he wanted to say next, and she cut him off by speaking first. "You have to go father, I know that if you stay, I'll ask you not to change, or you'll tell me you don't want to, that you'll stay as you are, and I'll encourage you to do that, even though I know I shouldn't. So please… go, I beg you, go before I beg you not to." She whimpered out trying desperately hard to keep from crying again as if she, as if they were losing something, which they were.

Ainz could only stroke her hair and mutter a faint, "OK, OK."

"You can go back to where the office is, instead of going in there, keep going down the hall, around to the right, last door on the left is an exit that will take you out the back way. When you're 'turned' back, let me know and I will come to Nazarick and see you again." She smiled weakly and released her death grip on his body, prompting him to loosen his as well and they stepped back from one another.

Ainz started to walk away, but before he was out of sight, he stopped and looked at her. "Neia Baraja, daughter of my heart if not my blood, many have said I am a god, including yourself, but to say and do as you have in this moment, shows that in some ways, you are far, far stronger than I ever was, or ever could be, and I will never stop being proud of you for that."

She bit her lip and barely mustered out a "Thank you." As she wrung her hands and he disappeared out of view.

He was so dead set on his own thoughts, that he did not see that a person that had just glanced at him from nearby had their eyes turn red, and immediately stop what they were doing and walk in the direction of the Red Door Tavern. Nor did he see 'Perse' walking into the temple, as he contemplated all the things that had just happened.

Within the temple, when Neia Baraja was sure her father was gone, and had certainly left the building, she went back to the office she shared with her wife for this visit, and wept tears of happiness, pride, and loss, all at once, as a long empty hole in her heart, was filled up to bursting and poured out her eyes in such quantity that she was still at it when Skana returned after her part in the service was done. While her first impulse at seeing her wife this way was utter distress, it was soon evident by Neia's own words and her own embrace that, whatever had transpired, whatever words or deeds had been relayed, her beloved was not filled with bitterness or sadness alone. With no better ideas about what to do, she simply held on to Neia and let the dam that had burst, flow out until the waters of her soul had calmed themselves.

When at last they did, Skana touched her wife's cheek and asked gently, "Are you… alright now?"

Neia nodded urgently, "I am. I won't say there is no sadness there, but it is a kind of… beautiful sadness, tied inextricably to my happiness, and in a way, I'm happier than I've ever been before."

A smile that spread across Neia's face told Skana it was the truth, but any further conversation was abruptly prevented by a firm knock at the door.

**AN: Well you might be wondering if this piece is going to detail every day of the next six weeks or if it is going to take up all my time, truth is, no, it isn't. It actually doesn't have a whole lot left to it, there are some things I want to show still, before bringing it to its conclusion, but this isn't going to be my longest work by any stretch of the imagination. Handful of chapters and this task will be complete. I'll have 'Angel Bound' Chapter 3 up tomorrow I expect, depending on how long it takes to beta read. Maybe this one has been faster because the relationship between Ainz and Neia has been built up so much over so long. I don't know how well this one will end up, I don't have it set as 'God Rising canon' at the moment, but then, I don't have to either, not until the last chapter of the last story, but hey, we'll see how this comes out. Tell me, what do you think? Canon? Not canon? Wondering what the fuck you're reading? Can't see the screen through bittersweet tears happiness and sadness? I won't know unless you tell me.**


	9. The Heart of a Succubus

A Heart for a King

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 9: The Heart of a Succubus

_...City of Carne Village...Black Justice Temple…_

The knock at the door surprised Skana, but it did not phase Neia, who only had to wonder who had found their way to her first. She sighed, "Skana, I hate to ask this twice in a day, but can you give me the office again? I've been expecting this."

"If you think it best, my love." Her wife said hesitantly, her face became a mask of doubt as her eyes went from Neia's suddenly tight expression and the door at which she stared.

"I do." Neia said and folded her hands in front of her on the table. Her voice was quiet and resolute, it did not leave room for argument or doubt, and so Skana went to the door.

"Come in." Neia said, and the door opened, leaving Skana to look in surprise at the familiar face of Lady Albedo.

Skana froze, looked back at Neia, who nodded at her encouragingly, and so she left, walking quickly out the back way.

Albedo did not waste time or mince words, she shut and locked the door behind her.

"You know where he is, and you will tell me." She said bluntly.

Neia's eyes went dark as pitch, but she did not call upon the wrath of her god.

Even through pitch eyes she could see the unspeakable beauty of the succubus, and she envied the woman her perfection on more than one occasion, yet beauty came in many forms, and in some ways, Neia knew she could match the one who would wed Lord Ainz if she could.

"Lady Albedo, are you threatening me?" Neia asked quietly, choosing to take the more formal and less affectionate tone than what she commonly would have.

"No, I am informing you, you will tell me what I want to know." She said with the same bluntness as she approached and stood in front of the desk and looked into the eyes of terror, with eyes of desperation..

"Lady Albedo… Please calm yourself." Neia said, using the power of her voice to best effect, "In father's name, I call on you to reason with your daughter."

Albedo relaxed herself, the tension was not completely gone, but she had known Neia for years, had watched the girl try to kill herself to please His Majesty when she believed those were his orders, and held the girl as she wept in pain to bring prophecy to their lord. One thing she was absolutely confident about when it came to Neia Baraja was that the warrior pope would not oppose anything favorable to those she loved like parents.

The pitch dark of Neia's eyes faded away and she let out a sigh and relaxed herself. "You're looking for father, aren't you? I can only assume that is who you mean."

Albedo's smile went enormous, "Is he coming, was he here… have you seen him?" She asked, leaning urgently forward on the desk and slapping her hands down hard a few inches away from the pope.

Neia wiped her eyes clear, "I did… it was…" she wiped again, the effort at making them dry before this moment was rendered futile. "It was wonderful… I know how you feel about humans, but understand, despite everything, that is what I am, and to see his heart presented so…"

Albedo's expression went soft, and she went around the desk and knelt so that she was at eye level with the daughter of the man she loved. The pope, shocked, turned her chair to face the succubus. "Neia Baraja, I know a similar feeling, one you can't imagine, I've loved him for as long as I can remember, I've waited for him to see me, I've told him in so many ways, shown him so many times… I… he…" She let her speech falter, she had not revealed this next part, and it was not easy, but Neia was in shock, she'd never seen Albedo present this side of herself.

"Toward the end of our time in the second world, before coming here, he 'changed' something in me, I can't even begin to explain how, but he changed some part of who and what I was, and decided that I should love him, him and no other, that I should long for him and him alone to be at my side and in my arms. That his child should swell within my body, that I existed solely to serve him and make him happy. You didn't know this, did you child?" Albedo's voice became soft and agonized as pent up frustration spilled out and her pupils shook within the whites of her eyes.

"No…" Neia said solemnly.

"Can you imagine, yes, you can, I think, if anyone can, it is you." Albedo began to say, and as she knelt there, she grasped Neia's arms and held them firm but without cruelty or threat, only a desperate urgency.

"Imagine… what?" Neia asked in disbelief that this could be happening.

"Imagine loving someone so much, someone who made you love them, defined your very life around making them happy, giving them the warmth and comfort of your heart, only to see them do nothing with it but push it back to you? I tried so… hard… so damned hard! I flung myself at his feet, I abased myself in the worship he deserves, I read every book in the Library of Ashurbanipal on how to be a wife, I have years… years worth of children's clothes, for boys and girls, which I made by HAND so that the baby I would bear for him would want for nothing! Yet still I am empty inside! Not only within my belly, but in the place where he planted my love for him! Every day! Every DAMN DAY I wake up and say, 'This will be the day I see love for me in his eyes! This will be the day he calls me to his bed and I can melt into the happiness he decided I should long for!"

Her voice was thick with pain and her gaze fell, "And so every night I lie awake and wonder how I failed him, how is that that I could let my god down, how that day, was I inadequate, that he did not want the love he put inside me, and pushed it aside again! You of all should know why it hurts! You love him as a father, yet he couldn't return it to you as you wanted. Do you remember what you begged of me over ten years ago?" Albedo asked sharply as her entire body trembled and shook like a leaf in a cold winter breeze.

Neia nodded, "You mean during my stay in Nazarick after the siege of Prart?"

Albedo wiped her eyes and stared at the daughter of her master with iron conviction. "You begged me not to make you ask him if he saw you as a daughter, you said you wanted the hope even if you were wrong. I did not make you ask, I spared you an order at your request, I imparted to you my own desires, my longing, and sought to know your mind. You looked into my eyes and told me you only wanted him to be happy, I know you searched mine to find some hint of selfishness, and because you agreed to support me as his wife, I know you found none." Her voice was sharp and clear, but it was like a dam that was near to overflowing from a storm. "Am I wrong?" She asked.

Neia shook her head gravely. "Look into my eyes, Neia Baraja. You received the love of your father from the bottom of his heart to the bottom of your own today, and you have longed for it for a long, long time. You promised me your support, for his sake and not for mine, am I lying now? Am I out to hurt him?" Albedo asked and locked golden eyes to the sudden pitch blackness.

Neia's head shook slowly.

"Perhaps, in a way, there is some small selfishness in me, even if you don't see it that way." Albedo said, looking away a moment only to snap her eyes wide and stare back into Neia's own. "But it is only the desire to be what he made me to be! How can I be wrong for that?! Now here he is, able to truly 'feel' everything! And what happens?! He leaves Nazarick… Why?! Why did he leave?!" She asked in an agonized voice.

"He went to see Enri… he came to see you… he was with Vanysa when he changed… but all I got was this?!" She gently laid the crude drawing down on the desk next to Neia. "I am among the smartest in Nazarick, I am no fool, even I can see the ache in you, daughter of the King, to have him leave you behind and walk away as he must surely have done a short while ago. But think… as much as it hurt to get that…" She rose a little and clasped Neia's head in her hands and drew her close, there was no brutality in her grip, Neia felt distinctly like Albedo was holding on more for fear she would fall, "Think of how much it hurt me, to get not even that. To just be left behind by the man who decided I should always want to be with him! If he did it just because he wanted me to suffer… then I will learn to live with it and be glad I even get that much…" Her face fell and her hands let go and she did indeed collapse, her head in the lap of a human.

"But if that is the case, I wish I could just know that it was so, if I see him as he is, when he has no limits to what he can feel, think, say, or do… even if he should deny me, there would be that chance… would you deny mother that much? Please!" Albedo entreated with an ache in her voice that tore at Neia's heart strings, "Tell me where he is! Let me say what I need to, let me see what I need to! Unless he has told you expressly that he will not permit me in his presence… please, tell me where I can find my king…"

Neia had never been much for physical affection, but on finding a similar ache between herself and the Guardian Overseer, another demon she respected and had worked with for year upon year, and having felt the ache of another woman's heart, she could not deny her in this.

She wrapped her arms around the shaking form of the Guardian Overseer… "I'll tell you what I can, father did not say not to tell you, only to give him time, what for, he didn't really say, I think… he wanted to see things through eyes like mine."

Albedo wiped her eyes and laughed a little, "You say that, while your eyes look almost exactly like his own, with the wonderful endless dark?"

"I guess I should have let that go before saying what I did." Neia smiled, "Go on, stand up, Guardian Overseer, mother. Don't let 'her' see you like that when she gets here."

Albedo's face froze in surprise. "How did you know?"

Neia's face formed a smirk, "I'm not as intelligent as you or father, but that doesn't make me stupid either, just because I wasn't born in Nazarick. If father has turned human and is here, Lady Shalltear will not be far behind. Father I think, would prefer if you both knew at once, and she'll be here soon."

"If those are his terms…" Albedo said, and got to her feet and went and sat in an empty chair opposite the desk.

Neia's prediction proved to be quite true, it wasn't long before the vampire guardian was at the door, knocking away insistently.

"It's open. Come in." Neia said firmly.

In she stepped in all her timeless beauty, she was halfway through her presumptive declaration that Neia would tell her what she wanted to know when she saw that Albedo was already seated in front of the desk and looking back at her.

Her mouth hung open in surprise and disbelief, and Neia gestured with one hand to the empty chair next to Albedo. "Please, sit. You needn't make any demands, father said I was free to tell you both everything."

A wave of relief washed over Shalltear as she gingerly sat.

"How long ago was he here, and where is he going?" Shalltear asked as soon as she was seated.

"First thing first." Neia said, meeting Shalltear's eyes with the eyes of terror. "I should tell you both 'why' he came here alone, without you."

The two leaned forward, interested and deeply troubled.

Neia sighed deeply, "Understand I can only speak from how I know him, I know him in a different way than the two of you, I never wanted him in any other way than I have him now. So I have a perspective you two do not. I do not have this from his lips, but only from my observations."

They looked at one another, and in wordless acknowledgement to one another, they accepted what Neia would say next.

Neia's hands folded over one another in front of her and she said, "I am going to be blunt, I know you both desire children, and… I believe father does as well, but I am also absolutely certain that 'he' does not feel prepared for that himself. If you chase him, if you pursue him, I know you will catch up to him. If you disguise yourselves, he may or may not detect who you are, perhaps you'll be able to get him drunk and entice him that way. Perhaps you'll make him feel guilty enough that, aware of what he does, he will lie with you as a husband would with wives. But I promise you both, if you do either, you will both regret it."

Their mouths fell open, "How can you be so sure of that?" Albedo asked, doubtful, in spite of the certainty in Neia's voice.

"Because affection cannot come from manipulation. I have no doubt of his love for you, but if you force his hand now, when he has returned to his former state, he may not be able to feel the same, but he will recollect what it felt like for those he trusts and loves to have manipulated or extorted him into action." Neia's voice was confident, bold, and filled with the power of the evangelist class.

"Then what…" Shalltear began to say, clenching her fists on the desk.

"Go to him if you wish, but go to him 'for' him, help him see things that he wants to see, look after him while he's vulnerable in his current state, further the bonds you share in common, but don't take advantage of them. In a hundred years, when he does this again in another experiment which..." Neia tried and failed to suppress a smile, "...hopefully goes more smoothly the next time, I think then he will be ready. I only regret that I'll be long gone by then." She put on a sad smile at the thought, and stood up. Intuiting that their time together was nearly up, the Guardians stood as well, and Neia added; "If there is an afterlife though, I'll be cheering for you both from there. Just please… make him happy, look after father for me… he works so hard… he deserves a joyful existence."

This caught them both off guard, neither had ever heard the human woman speak of her own mortality and very limited lifespan before. They looked at one another as if each were asking the other if their counterpart knew, and each was met with empty look in turn.

Albedo glanced at her quizzically, "I assumed you would be made immortal, like Outer Guardian Renner, or at least be given the apples of Idun to retain your youth."

Neia smiled weakly and shook her head. "If my father commands my continued life, then I will submit, but for my own thoughts, I will do what I can to turn this into a better world, then hand it over to those who come after. Life, for me, has been a weighty thing and often troublesome, I won't regret my end… not very much anyway. He knows this, and honors my wish, he will allow me to pass away." Neia shook off the thought impatiently.

"But you didn't come here to learn something so inconsequential, you want to know where father is? He didn't say exactly where he was going, however because he has come to see Enri, and myself, I think he is going to see his oldest ally outside of Nazarick, he will go to Arwintar to see Jircniv, and he will be on the road." Neia said with absolute confidence.

"Good." Albedo said, and looked over at Shalltear, "Let's go Shalltear, we'll need to catch up with him." She said confidently.

"Together?" She asked aghast.

"For his sake, yes." Albedo replied firmly.

Shalltear sighed and shrugged, "I guess it can't be helped." She then turned and walked out the door, Albedo followed slowly, but she lingered in the door and looked over at the seated human girl who was already returning to work after facing the two guardians, the whorling inky blackness of her eyes… so much like his when she called it up.

"Neia Baraja." Albedo called suddenly, prompting Neia to look up.

"Yes?" The pope inquired curiously.

"You've been a daughter to me since your trial in Menowa, but never more than now, has the bargain we struck ten years ago, has been so fulfilled." Albedo said with a genuine expression of affection on her face.

Neia smiled happily, "What kind of a daughter would I be, if I didn't cheer on my mother, and help her when I could?."

Albedo inclined her head, and went back out after Shalltear, closing the door behind her, leaving the woman of legend alone.


	10. Longing on a Long Road

**AN: Well this has been an emotional roller coaster so far. I know, I know, every time you see a story where Ainz has a dong, he has sex with everything or it is there just to ship him with Albedo, or Shalltear, or he's a Catholic priest and he's interested in Mare, or gods alone knows what else. Well, you may or may not have noticed by now... but I am not quite that predictable. The client paid for 'heartwarming, wholesome, and beautiful, and by the dead six they WILL get it. There isn't a ton left to this story, I'm not going to go through the entire month and a half, but if I did it would be 300,000 words long. As it is, between this one and Angel Bound I've given you 50,000 (or close to it) in 6 days, so be happy. :) Once these two commissioned stories are done it is back to God Rising and Blood in the Streets as the main two, a LOT to cover still as far as character arcs go, and I'm sure you can't wait to get back to it. If you want to support my Overlord: God Rising related creative work, you can do so o dot com slash godrising. I do not keep the money, it goes to pay for equipment for turning it into an audio book series (free) and an illustrated ebook (also to be free, money means fuckall to me, I just want to make something awesome). Or you can just come hangout on the discord server for exclusive stories and an awesome fanfic environment. (Invite code is on the author page) OK that's enough out of me, on with the show:**

A Heart for a King

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 10: Longing on a Long Road

_...Baharuth Imperial Province Eastern Border…_

Demiurge was frankly enjoying himself. A little competition was healthy, and it kept their evenings even more enjoyable. He and the demoness of vengeance had held contests in man breaking, they had held contests in hunting, and they had contests in research. The prize was always the same, the victor got to enjoy the vanquished as they pleased. Occasionally he suspected, through her salacious glances and somewhat overexaggerated responses in the final tally, that she had thrown the contest on purpose. 'Not that I mind,' he thought as he tracked his prey through the woods.

Another two unlawful necromancers were likely operating in this area. He had, so far, been winning this contest to capture the requisite magic casters, but he had the distinct impression when they parted ways, that she was earnestly striving to do the same. Again, not something he minded. Whichever of them won, Nazarick was ultimately victorious. He smirked as he found the entrance he suspected would be near here, a little border cave. He stood there and looked at it for a moment. It was not a large opening, barely wide enough for one person to walk through and it stank. 'I wonder, could these be from over the border, or are they local to our Empire?' He thought the matter over in his head, briefly concerned over the diplomatic implications of possibly taking a neighbor nation's citizens. He set the matter aside. There were no others present, and whichever nation they were from, they had come to the Sorcerous Empire, or were part of it, and in both they were criminals worthy of death. So he simply waited.

True he could have gone within, but he was not fond of caves, he wrinkled his nose at the stench, blood and viscera were nothing, even the soiling of one's self was of little concern. Unpleasant, but to be expected when working on two legged sheep. But otherwise, he paused and adjusted his tie, well he considered himself to be a man of culture, filth was not something he was fond of, and the stink within was as if rotten eggs had children with the farts of diuretic pigs and those offspring had never heard of soap. So he waited.

Eventually the foul smelling Abelion Sheep walked out of the cave when whatever activities they had conducted were completed, and Demiurge stepped out from where he had concealed himself.

He didn't want to waste any time on them. They stank and as it happened, these were humans, so probably local, relieving a minor worry that had lingered on in spite of his previous dismissal of it. The gate opened behind him and he exercised his command mantra before they could say a word of their own. "Walk through that gate, stand still on the other side, and inform the one to take you, that I said to give you a bath." He stepped out of their path and watched smugly as their bodies betrayed them.

"What!" A man's face contorted in distress as his body moved of its own accord.

"I can't… what's happening?" Another cried, he frantically waved his arms, they tore at each other's rich looking red cloaks, trying to use one another to pull themselves back from their death march.

They frantically tried to grab at trees and branches, but their legs were far too strong, and their grips were far too weak.

He was fairly sure that of the seven men in the band, not all of them were magic casters, and not all of those were at least of the third tier, but at least one was sure to be, possibly two, maybe even more. However even with those who were not, they would still have a use for him. He smiled happily as he withdrew from the area, and headed to the next spot, hoping it did not stink as badly as the most recent one.

_...Nazarick…_

Eclair was ecstatic, word had raced like the wind over the sea that the Sorcerer King had been turned into a human and then departed. 'With the throne vacant, this my chance! I can seize it for myself… at long last, my cleaning has paid off!' The little emperor penguin thought to himself as he walked with slow majesty towards the throne room where he would declare before all, the start of his rule. As he walked, he saw he was nearing the bar. "Might as well stop in and have a victory drink before I go to the throne room." He mused aloud and changed course.

He pushed open the door and approached the bartender, waving to the few maids in the room at the time. They glared at him a bit, as word had swept the tomb and the Eclair made his declaration of rule known, they'd taken a dim view of his words and turned up their noses. He waved at them in a lordly manner, he would forgive them, when the time came. As long as they cleaned well.

He clambered up into a seat and ordered a Nazarick special. "This is my victory drink, once I finish this, I will be going to the throne room and taking my rightful place as lord of the tomb." He said casually and happily to the bartender.

"Oh ho!, That is very impressive, 'Lord Eclair,'" the mushroom headed man remarked enthusiastically. The door opened again, but the penguin did not notice, as he was caught up in the moment of enthusiasm.

"But you have one problem, one great trial you must overcome before ascending to the throne." The bartender said in a profound tone of voice, the Eclair could hear the maids at the table start to snicker.

"Oh, what's that?" Eclair asked curiously.

"Escaping CZ Delta's quarters." The bartender answered with a hint of mischief in his voice.

The emperor penguin shuddered, "Don't even joke about that, last time she picked me up I was stuck there for two months, with all those annoying stickers plastered all over my body. Fortunately she's not in Nazarick."

"Cute." A familiar voice said, and Eclair's beak froze in the open position, he tried to turn around, but her arms went around him first. She picked him up and clutched him against her torso. The laughter of the maids became louder.

"No! No! I'll miss my chance!" He wildly waved his flippers and his webbed feet, "You're supposed to be with Lady Neia! Why are you here?!" He shrieked.

"Something came up. Now I am back, and you can come with me." She said in her customarily clipped fashion and started carrying the outraged penguin out of the bar and back to her quarters. His screech of 'Nooooooo!' was cut off by the heavy door closing, and just as the door of the bar had cut off his spoken resistance, when the door of CZ's quarters closed as she carried him within yet again, he felt his ambitions being cut off as well.

_...Argland Council State…_

Vanysa stood before the council in her demonic form. It was an informal sort of audience, no public ceremonies, no celebratory balls, just a brief audience and a proposal. "...So you see, noble dragon lords, by contributing to our research goals, you may gain as well. I know since our… ahhh… cleanup," she smiled a sweet, winsome smile, but her eyes told them another story, that the 'cleanup' of which she spoke with such casualness involved a great deal of death and pain, "many of our less kindly inclined mages, such as Zuranon members and other little cultists, have set up in your borders. I also know you'd like to get rid of them, and that doing so is expensive, isn't it?" She asked in a sympathetic voice.

The Obsidian Dragon Lord sighed, "You already know, don't you?" It was common knowledge among the council members that the intelligence agents of the Sorcerer King had almost turned their nation into a training ground for new people, and as such, there was very little taking place in the last independent western nation, that the Sorcerer King did not know about.

Vanysa however, looked at him with an innocent expression, her wide eyes shone and her mouth formed a perfect, mystified little 'O' shape. She touched her talon to her golden cheek and said, "I have no idea what you're talking about, how would 'we' know exactly what you're spending, anyone can see it is expensive, but how could we know just what it cost down to the last coin?"

It was a rhetorical question. She knew exactly what it cost them, and they knew she knew, and she knew that they knew that she knew. But it was a polite pretense, which didn't go completely unappreciated.

The Wyrm Dragon Lord spoke up, "Let us drop the charade and get down to the heart of the matter. We all know that our independence has continued because it is largely irrelevant, without imports from the Sorcerous Empire, our nation does not survive, if our nation goes to war, it ceases to be, and yours is the only nation from which we can import. But…" the negative tone with which he spoke, changed, "...nominal or not, those borders and our peace has been respected. The amount we spend is hardly top secret information, even if," he fixed Vanysa with a stare that resulted in a mere wink being returned, "the amount was in their hands before the last ink spent writing numbers, had dried on the paper. Fine, we're spending five thousand extra silver per month on security, our borders are a sieve, your criminals run to us to escape justice in your lands, and that includes cultists, bandits, Zuranon, and even the odd Theocracy remnant still holding out hope that the six will come back and save them. So what are you offering?"

Her playful tone turned coldly professional and she whipped out a document from within a satchel she'd brought with her. "We'll supplement 'part' of the difference, say… a third per year, in exchange for all those that you catch being returned to us. In addition, we'll pay one hundred extra silver for every one of those who is a magic caster, with one hundred extra per every tier beyond the first that they're able to cast. This deal shall be set to expire in three years, with mutual options for renewal every year thereafter. What do you say?"

The dragon lords looked around at one another, there was no visible downside to this.

"Why would you make such an offer?" The Platinum Dragon Lord asked hesitantly.

"You are peaceful neighbors, it is not your fault that our criminals have fled to your lands, so there is the matter of keeping true justice between us. Second, there is a practical reason, we have… uses, for such types, and their absence leaves us wanting." She replied simply, opening first one hand, then the other at her sides to emphasize the two points.

"I see, your undead labor force, that makes sense." The Blue Sky Dragon Lord said sagely, while Vanysa smiled cryptically as if he'd understood, when in fact, while he wasn't fully wrong, he wasn't right either. While the common criminals would probably end up that way… eventually, the magic users were another matter. But there was no need for Argland's leaders to know this.

"Can we receive a bonus if we also send you 'our own' criminal reprobates?" The Obsidian Dragon Lord asked in a fit of greedy inspiration.

Vanysa smiled politely, "We'll pay the same bonus for magic casters if you do that, however for common criminals…" She trailed off for a moment and looked away in thought, after drawing their eyes to her, she turned back and nodded, "yes, we'll take those types as well, however you'll only receive an extra one thousand silver on top of the almost two thousand you can expect to receive already. We're not paying your entire security budget. Is that acceptable?" She asked.

"Yes." The dragon lords said, one right after the other.

"Very good, I'll have an official proposal on your desks for signature by this afternoon. Specify where we should open a gate at, and you can file the criminals through at your leisure, just mark the magic casters with a red x on their uniform and the number representing what tier of magic they can use, and I'll have the first payment shipped to you at the end of the month." She replied happily.

"It will be done." The Obsidian Dragon Lord said emphatically and eagerly.

"I know." She said sweetly, before she bowed, and walked back through the gate that opened behind her.

"Well, that went well." The Blue Sky Dragon Lord said, "I always worry that when one of them comes calling, they're coming to declare war and finally finish us off."

The Platinum Dragon Lord gave a sympathetic nod, "I know. Did we ever come up with a plan other than 'surrender immediately' to deal with a Sorcerous Empire invasion?"

"No." They all answered sullenly.

"Hmm... Maybe it is time we started talking about enacting the one plan we do have, before we have to, and on the best terms that we can." The Platinum Dragon Lord sighed with a regretful sigh.

_...Central One…_

The Central One Road was the first great highway connecting the Baharuth Imperial Province to its southern neighbors, it ran from Arwintar, in a long winding path, all the way to Carne, and continued west and south from there, tying both to E-Rantel. The road was the brainchild of Pandora's Actor, in his role as Momon, who remarked on the utility of such a system tying everybody together. 'Central One' became 'the' great road that bound all the Sorcerous Empire together, it had taken five years to build, and even with skeleton labor, it had still cost twice the entire annual budget of any one nation. Enchanting it all was done as sections were completed, and it greatly enriched both the dwarves of the north and those of the Understone Imperial Province.

Ainz was especially proud of it, and a celebratory holiday commemorated it's official completion. Unsurprisingly, numerous new villages and towns sprang up along Central One to take advantage of the new system, which Ainz took advantage of by temporarily ordering interest rates for such loans to be lowered, in exchange for insurance against default. The result had been an economic explosion in commerce that saw prices drop, employment skyrocket, and the number of people left wanting, reduced into the single digit percentages. In addition, a suggestion from Vanysa had himself and Albedo conduct a tour of the road and to oversee the incentivized movement of many species around to the newly built areas in order to speed the process of integrating all races into a single cosmopolitan, culturally amalgamated whole.

And now here he was, walking along Central One in a human body as he moved North. 'I suppose I'll have to speed up the trip if I want to make it to Arwintar in less than forever.' Ainz thought to himself, 'But for now, perhaps I can just enjoy the sun and the wind and the passing looks devoid of fear, awe, or fawning affection. I can simply 'be' for a little while.' He pondered. 'Such a chance may not come again for another hundred years.' He said in the quietness of his own mind.

He found it in himself to smile as he thought of what Jircniv's expression might be when he saw 'Human Ainz'. The Bloody Emperor was a man Ainz had much admired as a ruler, even modeling himself after him, even if Ainz could never acknowledge that without ruining his image. Over time, they'd become friends, starting seemingly with the days before the War for the New World had begun.

Now as he thought of the man, he felt a true fondness for him that was deeper than what he could feel in his skeletal form. "What a difference a heart makes." He thought out loud as he walked alone, people passed him by, either without noticing or with a friendly wave. This close to the city, traffic was heavy, with people walking and riding carts or horses being quite plentiful, the traffic would thin as Central One diverged and split into different directions, but even as it was, he felt wonderful, he'd taken special care to keep trees and greenery plentiful wherever he could.

"Blue Planet, if you could see what this looked like, you would no doubt lose your mind with happiness." He laughed.

Wrapped up in the intoxication of sensation, the Sorcerer King was oblivious to everything else, at least until a voice got his attention. "Excuse me! Sir! Can you spare some food for us?" It was the voice of a young woman. Ainz turned his head to follow the sound of the voice, it was a young girl, perhaps in her teens, she was of dark hair, slender form, and light brown skin, with pretty green eyes. She sat beside the road, looking more than a little tired and not altogether clean. Beside her sat an even younger girl, of like skin and eyes, but with lighter hair and an almost waifish look to her. 'Her little sister.' Ainz guessed.

"Yes?" He asked hesitantly. "Can I help you?" They looked like they needed it.

"I hate to ask, but… can we maybe have some food, maybe walk with you for a while and do some work, we're trying to get back to Arwintar." She said in a soft, trembling voice, as if she feared his refusal.

Ainz reached into his pack and handed out a loaf of bread to each. "Well, we are going the same way, but… what takes you so far at such young ages?" He asked.

"A member of our family is going there and… he left us behind, we know he meant well, but we can't bear to be without him. Please… Please don't just leave us here, we don't want to travel alone." The dark haired girl said hopefully.

Ainz shrugged, "I guess I can't help it, and I suppose it wouldn't be a bad thing to have some company on the trip." He said with a passive but gentle expression on his face.

"Come along then, but at least tell me your names." He said pointedly, "You can call me 'Herm'."

The older girl gestured to her younger companion, "This is my little sister, Suadela. My name is Perse." She added, touching her chest in a way that was at once innocent and inviting.

"Alright, I suppose we'll be traveling together then, finish your food, have some water," he said as he pulled out a water skin and handed it to them, "and when your strength is gathered, we'll be off."

He spoke with a kind tone, but in Albedo's eyes, he had lost none of his lordly voice, and as he gave to her these little things, all she could think was, _'Please… see me.'_


	11. Great Relief

A Heart for a King

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 11: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

...Central One Road…

Albedo and Shalltear, or Perse and Suadela, as they were now calling themselves, fell in on either side of the Sorcerer King and walked briskly with him in amiable silence. It was, for both of them, among the most remarkable moments of their lives. Not because the Sorcerer King displayed his awesome power, not because he reshaped the world according to his whims, and not because he worked miracles and gathered a following.

They found this day remarkable, because disguised as they were, they saw a whole new side of the man they loved. Something they had never known before. He walked with a kind of casual, carefree ease down the long highway, wagons passed and he would smile and wave, sometimes they would fall in with another group of people, some human, some not, some a mix of both and they saw him chat about idle nothings.

In short, they saw the unrestrained happiness of their master without any strings, pretense, or position barring the way between himself and others around him. As 'Perse' looked on, she remembered a time before 'the noodle incident' when common use of the mirror was still permitted. Back during the Synod, which had perhaps been the darkest days of Neia's life, the young Pope had stood before the mass of kings and priests and challenged the wisdom and might of the world to balance itself against her will to see the one true god proclaimed. As she thought back to those days, one now stood out among them all.

The day when the lone nature of the Sorcerer King's position was brought up, and she had called upon it as the greatest sacrifice of any being, stating that only a god could bear it. At the time Albedo, like most of Nazarick, including the demoness she'd once held in contempt, had feared the truth of her words as they'd watched the arguments unfold. Despite the reassurances of the Sorcerer King, while most had relaxed, Albedo had not. She had long feared a kernel of truth was buried in the human girl's words, and here was the clearest proof that it was so.

Ripped away from the clear nature of his supremacy and the body that restrained his ability to feel and connect beyond a limited measure, she saw him bloom like a flower in the springtime. He laughed at jokes and tried making his own few, though they rather persistently fell flat, he didn't obliterate those who didn't laugh, rather he looked sheepish and laughed at their next one.

'Suadela' traded a covert look with 'Perse' as if to ask if she could understand what they were seeing.

'Perse' smiled in return. She did. The scrunched up face and the tongue that was stuck back out in return was a promise that she would be questioned later.

When evening came, Ainz yawned, he had an almost boyish smile on his face as he did so that Albedo found utterly beautiful.

"We didn't quite make it to a town, so let's rest here." He said.

"Of course!" Perse said enthusiastically, "My sister and I will make camp, you rest yourself."

"But I…" He began to say.

"No, no, you were so kind to us earlier, let us do it!" Suadela said emphatically with a beet red face. "We'd be disgraced if you had to do the work after showing us your generosity."

"If… you insist." He hesitantly relented and took a seat on a small log set out by the road. The girls were quick, he gave them that, in minutes they'd established a place to camp, dug a hole for a fire and assembled a pyramid of sticks and filled the base with fuel in the form of gathered animal dung and other detritus, as well as erecting a small sloping wall propped up on two long sticks as a shield against the elements.

"You did an excellent job," Ainz said, "but that is a bit large, isn't it?"

"Sir, of course not, the night will be cool, we will be warmer if we all share one another's body heat." Perse said innocently.

"Oh." Was all he uttered, and he shifted uncomfortably. "Would you really trust a stranger so close to you?" He asked doubtfully.

The two girls looked at each other and frowned slightly. "Should we not trust you?" Suadela asked innocently. "You seem kind, and we are traveling together so… even if we didn't share space, we are close at hand, aren't we? The only difference is that we either will or will not have one another's warmth close by."

It was a sensible argument, one Ainz could not deny. "I suppose that is true. But first, shall we eat something?" He proposed and opened his pack, removing a few hunks of cheese, bread, and meat.

"Someone close to me used to love these." He said, "Try this." He grinned widely and put together a quick and crude set of sandwiches.

He handed them over, and the two took them reluctantly, they looked down at the odd combination in askance, and then with mutual shrugs, they took bites, chewed, and swallowed. While it wasn't bad… as far as fare outside of Nazarick went, both Albedo and Shalltear were focused on watching the way Lord Ainz ate with heedless, reckless, joyful abandon, savoring every single bite as if it were his final meal.

As they ate, and the two pretended greater enthusiasm for the food than they really felt, Ainz chose to pass the time in conversation. "So, tell me a little bit more about yourselves?" He asked of them.

Perse sighed, "It isn't pleasant, but as you've fed me and let me accompany you, I should at least answer you."

Herm looked cockeyed at her. "If it is an unpleasant subject, or because I am a stranger... please feel free to let the question pass."

Perse shook her head and gave him a sweet little smile, "I suppose of all those it hurts to say things to, sometimes it is strangers least of all."

Suadela looked over at her in surprise as Perse looked into the crackling fire and sighed.

"My… well, I hate to call him a father, but he did create me so… well I never had a mother, but my father… he abandoned me. A long, long time ago. I never knew why, I never knew if I'd done something wrong, or if he just never cared and it was just a convenient time for him to go. Whatever the reason, he left me one day and never came back." Perse said sadly.

"Did he die, perhaps?" Herm asked in a sensitive, delicate voice.

Perse shook her head, "No, he was a mighty soldier, just… just a terribly cruel father to have abandoned me as he did. Perhaps it was not as bad as all that though, he did leave me with someone, a dear friend of his. I was actually happy he was still with me at least. It was… a long time ago, like I said, but sometimes his absence, I hate him for that as much as I was grateful for the one into whose care I fell under."

"Oh? So you got a good caregiver at least." Herm commented.

"Yes, both sister and I were grateful that he at least remained. He… I guess you could say, he taught me to love him. He 'chose' to do things that he knew would lead to my abject devotion to him. And for that I was… truly happy." Perse smiled contentedly and her face went sorrowful a few moments later.

"But… he seemed to regret what he'd done, and no matter how I insisted that I didn't care why I loved him, it only mattered that I did, he would continually push me away. Living in his home, with him always within reach, was heaven and hell, because I could never get him to accept the feelings he himself chose to give me. Then, not too long ago, he also decided to leave, he wanted to go on a trip, but refused to let me come with him. So I was abandoned for a second time. So now, I chase him down, hoping that he will truly 'see' into me, and let me embrace him as I've longed to." Perse's voice was strong as words poured out of her, but her eyes were haunted so greatly that Ainz could not help but feel sympathy for her.

"Tell me… Herm. If you were him, what would you have done?" Perse asked inquisitively. "What words would you give to a girl who, who would give anything to see the look of love in the eyes of the one who raised her to love him?"

Ainz thought for a long moment, the story was tragic, and he reflected that, moral reticence about taking advantage of a young girl he'd manipulated into loving him, the man was unfathomably dense. "I honestly do not know." Ainz replied, "He seems very dense, perhaps he had good reason for refusing her affection, after all if he manipulated her into it, no amount of regret or remorse will change the fact that he's going to hurt her every time he pushes her away."

"He can be very blind." Perse said dryly.

"Evidently so." Herm replied.

"Evidently." Suadela said with equal unhappiness.

"I suppose I would tell him that he needs to take responsibility for what he's done to you, by more than just rejecting you and pushing you away. Maybe he should be praised for not taking advantage of you in a vulnerable state, but if he can't see how much he's hurting you, perhaps he needs to know that so he can find some way to make it right other than just not making a previous wrong, worse." Herm advised.

'Such is the greatness of my lord…' Albedo thought quietly to herself, 'If only he could see himself as I see him, if only he could see me as he made me see him…'

"Hmpf," Suadela snorted as she folded her arms in front of her flat chest and turned her nose up into the air, "It's because you're always chasing him, for all you know he wanted those feelings to hurt and you'd be ruining his fun by trying to end that by finding some fulfillment of your own."

Perse froze. "Surely not! He wouldn't have made me love him just to enjoy watching me twist in the wind!"

It was to her eternal relief that Herm shook his head in agreement with Albedo's words. "No, I can't think so either. To take the child of a precious friend and turn her into a toy to amuse himself, even if he had the power to do it, well I can't rule it out I suppose, but I can scarcely imagine such a cruel thing being done to the daughter of someone dear to him."

Perse sighed with relief, "Thank you, Herm, I would be lying if I said I didn't worry sometimes that this was why he'd done it. To hear another doubt it too, is a great relief."

They spoke for awhile longer then as the darkness rose higher and the fire grew dimmer, until Ainz chose to stand, "Well, I'm going to rest, decide who takes first watch, and whoever is second wake me when you're done."

"As you wish." They said politely, and soon they were watching him curl up on his side and drift into a deep, deep slumber.

When they were alone in their wakefulness, and they could converse in peace as he snored nearby, they chose to converse.

"This was, I will admit, a good idea." Shalltear said, "I've never seen him like this, it's like finding a whole other side of someone already unfathomable."

Albedo however, did not meet Shalltear's gaze for long. "That is such an enormous relief."

"What?" Shalltear asked in confusion.

"You know what he did to me on the last day of the old world. How he changed me so I would love him and no one else. I never had a choice about how I feel; about who I'd give my heart over to, he made me that choice for me, giving me himself as my purpose and the center of my world. Perhaps I would have felt that way anyway, but I 'know' that I was made into this. So why then… would he refuse me?" She asked Shalltear thoughtfully.

The vampire looked doubtful.

"I feared the very answer you proposed, more than anything else. That I was meant to ache for what I couldn't have, just because the aching pleased him. If that were the case, then so be it, but I was as terrified of that question as Neia was of her own. Now he's answered it, and it isn't true." Albedo's eyes glistened as she looked at his sleeping form.

Shalltear remained quiet, this was new.

"Don't you understand? I wasn't a… prank, a game, a toy, my love for him is not some kind of 'mistake' that can't ever be because he doesn't want it and never did." Albedo said in a breathless voice of joy.

Unable to think of anything else to say, Shalltear looked away out into the woods beyond the Central One road. "Are we really going to keep a watch, like there is anything in the world that can hurt any of us, even he in his present state."

"Even if he is not playing his own role, he is still the Supreme One, we will keep a watch." Albedo said firmly.

"Who goes first." She asked as she glanced hungrily at where her lord slept.

"No." Albedo said firmly, glaring at Shalltear.

The vampire looked down, "Fine."

"The human girl… Neia, his...his daughter, strange as that may seem, was right about this. Had we come to him as we always do, we would not be here now. This is a true chance to come to know him in another way, a chance that may not come again. Even if he is in a human body for now, he is still himself, and I want to know what that means." Albedo emphasized her words by speaking slowly and firmly, and Shalltear, knowing better than to argue the matter, looked away.

"Sacred ritual?" She asked Albedo.

"Yes." Albedo said, and they played rock, paper, scissors with a best two out of three standard, leaving Albedo rapidly the victor after quickly besting Shalltear twice.

"I'll sleep with him first, you keep watch." The Guardian Overseer happily uttered those words, and Shalltear grumbled, but set herself on a log and looked out into the distance.

Albedo ached with every fiber of her being to pounce on the man she knew to be her lord. In his human form, even with maxed out stats, she was sure she could have him, it didn't matter if the eight edge assassins were watching him still or not, it would take a guardian at the very least to stop her. But the words of the evangelist retained their power, and pounded over and over into her head.

Whether it was through the unparalleled skill of that girl with her voice, or whether it was simply that the skill made sure that she could see the truth of her words, or whether it lent her strength to restrain herself from her instincts, or even if it was simply that his body was not the one she knew… or perhaps it was some combination of all those things, she did not leap to the act.

Instead, just as she proposed they do, she slid to the inside of the little leanto of sticks and branches. It wasn't much, it definitely wasn't the luxury of Nazarick, yet as she slid within, so that he was spooning with her, she took his arm up oh so gently and laid it over her body. The wealth of mighty Nazarick to which all the wealth of the Sorcerous Empire flowed, was but a heap of dust and trash to her in that moment, wrapped in the sleeping arm of the one whose moment of decision had reshaped her life forever. Were all Nazarick to vanish, there were comrades she might miss, there were things she liked, yet even if she slept beneath a bridge in poverty and weakness, if she could lie with him, she would count herself the wealthiest of queens.

She wondered if the power of the evangelist voice would fade over time. Whatever this moment could be called, she had her doubts that it could have been called 'possible' if the carefully chosen words of the human girl had not been able to strike home. She felt no 'compulsion' in anything Neia had said, which was a matter of some curiosity as she pondered it. Demiurge's command mantra could make the most reticent act as if they were but his puppets, yet Neia's ability rested on her ability to touch hearts and minds, people 'chose' to listen to her.

'How strange.' Albedo thought to herself. 'I do believe that I prefer that human remain alive. What an unexpected wish for me to contemplate.'

Further thought was driven away from her mind when she felt him shift as he slept, his face so close to the back of her neck, she could feel him breathing. As a skeleton, he'd had no breath at all, he'd had no lips to press against her, his body had scarcely any warmth, yet now she could feel the air coming from his lungs as it touched her skin, the warmth of his arm as it draped over her breast, and she clutched it against her. This was the greatest intimacy with her beloved Lord Ainz that she had ever felt, and yet… 'He doesn't even know it is I… would he lie with me like this if he knew? Could he touch me, could he 'see' me as I have seen him?' These thoughts marched about her mind like conquering armies, and occupied all other areas of higher thought. Over and over she considered removing the rings she'd hidden on her toes and concealed within her traveling boots.

It suppressed her power and maintained the illusions. If he saw them, he'd recognize those items as being of Nazarick. But hidden from view by wearing them in this way, she was just a normal human girl as far as he would know, and the same was true of Shalltear.

At the very least, he might praise her cleverness, and possibly punish her impertinence, for which she could not blame him. Yet she could not resist this chance while it was present, and if there was any guilt held in her breast, it was less than the embers of the dying fire a few feet away, and it did not keep her from falling asleep, happier in that moment, than she had ever been before.

**AN: Well this has been an interesting one, I rarely get much of a chance to develop a guardian, they're walking mcguffins whose mere appearance ends conflict. So to properly unpack them I have to put their nature, beliefs, feelings, and their fundamental understanding of the world and their place in it on the line in a way that isn't a physical threat. I think I'm doing alright with that so far. But in the end, you can tell that better than I.**


	12. Change

A Heart for a King

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 12:

...Nazarick…

"She got how many?" Demiurge asked Sebas in surprise and disbelief.

"You heard me correctly." Sebas replied, "Apparently she went to the Argland Council State and got them to do most of the work for her by offering up their own criminal population for our use, it came out of her Security Office's budget."

Demiurge put his hand to his forehead and pushed his glasses up to his crystalline eyes, contrary to being upset, he was overwhelmingly pleased. "Well now, it seems I must raise the bar myself, I'll be visiting the Karnassus City State Alliance for a few days. Please call me if anything is needed." He said with a laugh. "She won't beat me that easily."

The portal opened, and he was quickly gone, confident that Albedo's work there during the war had not been forgotten.

As Demiurge departed, Sebas went back to his duties, approaching Pandora's Actor who had been taking charge of matters as the wisest remaining being in Nazarick. As he explained what he had learned, Pandora could of course be counted upon.

"Mein Vater ist gut darin, Talente zu finden." He said simply from the steps of the throne room. The throne itself sat empty, and despite being the personal creation of their master, he refused to sit in his father's throne, preferring to govern from the steps, as one unworthy to take the highest peak of power for himself.

"Yes, but nonetheless this is much faster than anticipated, they were estimating a few weeks to find the materials needed for recreating the object, it hasn't even been three days and they're over halfway done, another two and they may well be. I wish they wouldn't underestimate themselves so, their sense of inadequacy only comes about from comparing themselves to the incomparable Lord Ainz." Sebas replied resignedly.

"Das ist wahr. But it drives them to strive ever harder to please our lord, my father. So it must be borne." Pandora's Actor replied in a dramatic voice.

"I suppose." Sebas said, and sighed.

...Baharuth Imperial Province…

Traveling on the Central One road had proved a relatively easy thing to do, Ainz enjoyed the company of the two women, and he quickly got used to waking up with one or the other spooning with him in the morning for warmth. Also, he found he enjoyed conversing with them as he traveled.

But always at the back of his mind was a measure of concern, he wondered what Neia had ended up telling Albedo and Shalltear, the two hadn't shown up yet. Were they watching? It was a point of minor concern, and sometimes made him startled at a sudden noise in the night. It was after one such occurrence that Perse chose to speak up.

"Pardon me, Herm, but… I couldn't help but notice that whenever there is a noise in the dark, you glance over as if expecting a dragon to jump out at you. Could you… explain? Is there something we have to concern ourselves with?" Her voice was calm, but she too, scanned the dark with evident concern of her own.

Herm laughed, chuckled really, and shook his head. "I suppose not, but, well... how do I explain this? Far away from here, there are two women who love me deeply, or…" He paused, and both Suadela and Perse looked at him attentively.

"Well… it isn't that I feel nothing for them, the truth is, I do love them also, very deeply. However they want from me things I could not give before, and do not have within me to offer now. I'm afraid I'm something of a tormentor and disappointment both at once to them. And, it is somewhat complicated."

He reached out and stirred the pot of stew that began to bubble as it heated over the flames. "The… smaller, of the two, while her feelings are genuine, she doesn't truly know the real me. She loves my position, she loves my role, but those are not the same things as 'myself'. I'd tell her this, but I fear rather than seeking to discover what it is she loves for herself, she'd just change who she is, and try to love the things I love, enjoy the things I enjoy, all just to have me and to please me, and then she wouldn't be herself anymore." Herm snorted derisively.

"Does it sound absurd to you?" He asked.

Suedala looked like she was about to cry. "That's not fair." She said with a sniffle.

"How's that?" Herm asked, surprised at her emotional response.

"If you don't show her who you are, how will she know how she really feels?" Suedala sniffed. "Maybe what she feels is truly for you, maybe not, but it isn't fair if you keep that back, is it?"

"Maybe not." Herm replied, "But before she seeks me as I am, she should at least define herself first, by more than just her immediate wants and performance at her tasks. Some years ago, during the war, she did some wonderful work, she sought to learn new things and did a very good job, I was proud of her. But since then, well, it was as if coming home brought out old habits and her fixation kept her back." Herm replied as he ladled stew into bowls for each of them.

"Making it more complicated, both want children, but I'm not ready for that, I'd like some too, but it isn't that simple. I don't want to hurt any child of mine, and… there is a girl, an adopted daughter you might say, I put so much on her that she broke herself in trying to help me. I just kept letting her push on, despite seeing how much she was tearing herself apart, I didn't even see what it was doing to her until she tried to end her life. If I could let that happen to one child, why not another? No." He shook his head, "Absolutely not, so I have to deny both until I can be sure I am prepared, and I don't know how long that will be." Herm said with a somewhat morose sigh.

"I'm turning in, I'll take last watch." He added, and he went to laid down and go to sleep, having been in no mood for food.

When he was asleep, Shalltear and Albedo settled in to what had become a kind of mutually unspoken but agreed upon conference to discuss what they'd learned of their master.

"So strange, to hear him say these things… if he knew who we were, we'd never hear them, would we?" Albedo asked quietly.

"I don't think we would, and… I am glad I've heard him, perhaps I should try something new." Shalltear said, "If I show him I can grow, why maybe I'll even be his first queen."

She winked her blood-red eye at Albedo, but the succubus did not take the bait.

"What will you try?" Albedo asked curiously.

"Perhaps I'll try the arts, painting, music, sculpting, fashion, he seems to have liked some of the work he'd seen humans do, given his collection, maybe there is something to that." She said thoughtfully.

Albedo bit back the urge to insult her, however she did look at the little vampire and say, "That might suit you. Even if breastfeeding would not." She winked in return, as the urge to insult her rushed to the fore again, and Shalltear all but burst into flames, restraining herself due to the presence of Lord Ainz.

Again they played the sacred game of the supreme ones, and again Albedo was victorious and snuggled up next to her beloved lord with smug satisfaction that left Shalltear steaming with suppressed fury.

So it went for day after day of travel, each day and night they would spend time talking and learning more about the lord they admired, and each day they would learn more about how he saw them and saw the world, shattering illusions they had long held about his contempt for the world in which they lived, and in the evening they would learn more about him personally, games he liked that they'd never heard of, and to their great interest, they would learn more about the friends he'd lost. More than once they watched his face rise and fall with his enjoyment or sorrow at recollecting their memories. It was not until they reached the first major city, that they saw a whole new change overtake his demeanor.

"Marvelous." He said enthusiastically.

"Is it?" Perse said curiously.

"Yes." Herm replied, "Have you never been to cities like this one? No, perhaps you haven't, I'll explain things as we go, I'm familiar with all of it, though I've seldom had a chance to see it up close."

"Please do, we will be in your care." Suadela said hesitantly, trading a look with her 'sister' as they fell into step behind him.

"Do you see that empty open carriage there?" Ainz asked, pointing to a multiseat carriage on a paved path.

"Yes, what is so special about that, it's just an empty carriage?" Perse asked.

"Come along." He replied and strode up to it, he got in and dropped three copper coins into a box, as soon as they were seated, the carriage began to move on its own. "I… I believe the Sorcerer King had these established in the outlying areas of cities so that the poorer citizens could work far within despite not having horses or carts or carriages of their own. Carriages like this travel on a fixed path in a circuit, it extends employment radiuses without driving up the cost of residences by increasing commutable demand."

"I see…" Suadela said, in a voice that said she definitely did not see.

As the carriage moved along slowly and steadily, it hit various stops and people got on and off periodically. "See over there?" He asked with a grin as he pointed at the various buildings, far from being ordinary buildings of stone, what Perse and Suadela saw was a lush set of greenery, homes and businesses often contained plant life in great abundance, and he went on to explain, "Most of these grow edible plants, but some grow herbs and other things that are used in potion making, they sell the ingredients to alchemists and other magic users, as well as herbalists and businesses that trade with common citizens, to keep this growth possible, the nightsoil of the population is routed through a complex system of underground sewers to a facility that uses it to create new soil entirely using natural processes. The Sorcerer King first started using that system in what is now the City of Carne Village, before the war began. Undead laborers are used for it because nobody wants to do something so unpleasant, however some living labor is used in that respect as a penalty for minor crimes that don't warrant severe punishment. The end result is a beautiful green city that is better fed and producing more than ever."

They rode along further, "Did you notice all the trees along the street?" He asked.

"Yes, they are nice enough." Suadela replied, more to prompt him further than out of genuine enthusiasm.

"They're not just nice, they're fruit bearing, and available for public consumption, so that anyone who wants something to eat, has a 'free' public option to just take something for themselves. Selling it is absolutely forbidden, but eating some and taking a few pieces home is fine." He explained proudly.

"What of the ones that fall without being eaten?" Perse asked curiously.

"They're fed to beasts or used in making more rich soil through decomposition processes. While he may be the Sorcerer King, he often seems to act 'without' magic just to show people what is possible." Herm said in a pleased tone of voice. "Plus in the case of those trees, well the canopy it creates provides people shady places to walk in the summer months."

A dragon flew overhead, casting a great shadow down on them all. Keeping to their roles, Albedo and Shalltear pretended awe, and they found that they enjoyed it when their lord chuckled at their little play.

"Don't worry, the postal system has been radically expanded here over the years, and I'm sure that dragon is just carrying mail, or that would be my guess, since it is holding a modified lunchbox." He said in passing.

"A what now?" Suadela asked, mystified.

"During the war, General Enri invented something she called a 'Dragon's Lunchbox' it was a kind of large troop carrier that let her drop small numbers of soldiers around the battlefield, after the war, some of those were repurposed and given shelving and straps and so on to hold mail, now they fly over most of the Sorcerous Empire." Herm explained.

"Oh." She said.

"Oh indeed. They have designated air stations where dragons land and then things are sent to different sorting stations, of course as impressive as that is, the power facilities that he recently started building are real marvels." Herm said enthusiastically.

"Power whats?" Suadela asked again.

"Oh, he's started using a system of magic hammers on heat stones, the heat stones are under water tanks, and since water expands by one thousand six hundred and ninety nine times its size in gas form compared to its liquid state, it in turn forces a series of flaps to turn, and these flaps in these power facilities are used to provide light and power to various important industrial areas like blacksmith, runesmith, and other facilities that make things for the Sorcerous Empire. I hear he wants to expand it to private homes in time, once the kinks have been worked out of the system through experimentation." Herm said happily.

They rode in silence for a time, with Shalltear and Albedo sharing a glance that gave them mutual agreement, if they didn't ask him how he knew those things, he wouldn't worry that he was making them suspicious about his abundance of knowledge. However with that look, they also traded one of unparalleled admiration for his inventiveness and forethought in laying down deep roots for his empire to endure for countless generations. They only barely suppressed their longing sighs.

Ainz or, 'Herm' for his part, went quiet for an entirely different reason, 'Why are they so quiet, they wouldn't be that quiet unless they were suspicious about why a common soldier would know all these things, but if I try to cover it with a lie, it might be noticed or accidentally exposed later. I really shouldn't 'wing' everything every damn time. I got so caught up in how amazingly the Emperor has implemented my policies that I started monologuing. Damn it all! Well they're young, suspicious or not, there is no reason to conclude I'm the Sorcerer King in person. Just relax a little and enjoy the trip.' He thought of various other things he might say to distract or cover, but nothing else came to mind, so he just let the silence settle over them until he got down from the carriage.

"Should we get something to eat?" Perse asked, breaking the silence.

"I suppose we could, road rations are fine, but they do get old after awhile." Herm replied, it was partially true, while he did want to try something new, it felt so good to 'taste' things again that he hadn't gotten tired of the simple fare just yet.

As they walked the streets considering places to eat, Ainz couldn't resist, "Thanks to abundant universal trade regulations and a standard coinage backed by a central bank, annually reevaluated and automatically increased wages to match inflation rates, commerce is thriving all over the place. I was traveling in the east beyond the Sorcerous Empire some time ago, and some of those countries forge friendly ties with the Sorcerer King just to better understand how to implement his policies, sending observers and the like to learn everything they can. I met one of their envoys ah… by chance, and apparently they make a few token concessions in return. Some of these countries have started using his coins in place of their own. Thanks to the brilliance of the Guardian Overseer, I understand that the Minotaur Kingdom's royal family has even offered to leave the Sorcerer King to inherit the throne of their kingdom, with their heirs to rule as governors. This is the first empire to be expanding its borders without actually having to go to war."

"So they don't destroy the thing they wish to claim. Very clever." Perse said with ironic reflection on the fact that she was praising herself. Suadela gave her a bit of a sour look, but being behind the Sorcerer King, he was unaware of that, or Perse's response that took the form of a look of smug self satisfaction.

"It may be that there will be no more wars of conquest here, joining him is simply too advantageous, and opposing him is simply far too costly." Herm's voice was happy as he spoke, and behind him the two women shared looks of awe as they began to grasp the incredible depths of planning their unfathomable master must have undertaken in order to accomplish such a feat.

"I'm sure it helps that he's seen as a god by so many." Suadela said with a contented expression.

"Yes, I understand that his pope has been very active in sending her mercenaries abroad, as well as priests and the like to win both the fighting man and the common one over alike, and she used the merchant's guild to spread the faith among the coin counters, bankers, and traders. Being a member of Black Justice is almost a requirement to gain wealth in some places, and anyone 'not' a member, does not gain a very trustworthy reputation easily." Perse added.

"Oh, are you followers?" Herm asked as he pointed to a small establishment. "Let's eat there." He said.

"Ah, yes, we follow him as our god." Perse said, "We worship him as the god of love, for how much he gives to others, and how much he sacrifices in the same way." She added, keeping an eye on his body language as she said that.

"Yes, I remember reading about the pope's speech, he must be a very lonely figure." Herm said sadly.

"I'm sure that none who love him, would wish for him to have that, however." Perse added as they sat down at an outdoor table underneath a canopy of green ivy.

"Maybe not, but… what can anyone do about that?" He asked with a voice full of regret.

"What indeed?" Perse asked, taking care not to catch his eyes with hers. 'Please… please see what… I'm here, I'm right here… and I always will be.' She thought, and hid her face behind a menu that he would not see the wet sheen that formed over her beautiful eyes.

**AN: Well, what do you think?**


	13. Resolutions

Chapter 13: Resolutions

_...Nazarick…_

Getting the required number of victims together took less than half the time it was supposed to, and both Demiurge and Vanysa were standing in their research area with arms crossed and wings folded in front of their bodies as if they were cloaks while the gates opened and they counted out their 'haul' from their various activities. Each wore a smug expression that spoke confidently of victory in their little predatory contest, counting out the numbers two by two with singular thuds and grunts of bound third tier casters landing at their feet.

The smugness of each went on the wane as they closed in on the final tally. They glanced sideways at one another until two more flew through the portals at virtually the same instant, with Demiurge's landing first, and Vanysa's flying farthest.

"I believe that grants me the victory, mine landed first." Demiurge said with a look of smug self satisfaction.

"I don't believe so, Demi. Yours landed first, but mine flew farther and came in at the same moment, plus, this last one is a fourth tier, while yours is a third, meaning mine is worth more than yours is. I believe 'I' won this contest." She replied with equal smugness.

"Well, let's settle who won the best while we get to work on making the morphomantic orb." Demiurge said wishing he could roll his eyes.

"Fair enough, my reasoning is impeccable, I'm sure you'll come to agree that I won that one." Vanysa replied with a warm smile for her favorite demon.

"I was just going to say the same thing to you." Demiurge said as they secured the prisoners with ropes at the ankles and started dragging them over to the collection point where the prisoners would be destroyed for the benefit of Nazarick.

They were still undecided about who won that contest, a hundred years later.

_...Central One Road…_

Ainz enjoyed traveling as Herm, and he enjoyed the company of the two ladies that had joined him, it was a welcome relief from his many struggles in his position, though he regretted having to deceive them, the pleasure he got in simply talking idly and enjoying the scenery was tremendous.

So it was almost regrettable when he got word that the required number of subjects had been acquired early, leaving him only a single month to get to the capital. To that end, at their next stop in a small town, he looked over the two girls and said, "Why don't we speed the trip a bit, there is sure to be a temple to His Majesty here, I'm sure we can cheaply rent a few undead horses and arrive within a few days. I'm sure you'd both like to find the man you seek, after all."

Perse and Suadela shared a frustrated look at one another. "Yes," Perse said, "I want to find him, see him, I want to tell him not to feel guilty anymore, I want to tell him that I'd be by his side through anything, I want to tell him he means the world to me and that I'll always be there for him… I want… I want to tell him that I don't care what he looks like, what he sounds like, and that I truly see him for who he is, and that even if he hadn't done the things he did, I would love him anyway. That he's that kind of man to me, and that I'll never let him feel lonely, as long as I'm alive to comfort him, if only he would let me. If he could only… see me. Hear me… well, that is what I'd say to him." She hugged herself and looked away from him at the ground.

"He'll be happy for that. I think. He's a fortunate man." Herm replied.

Suadela nodded quietly along.

"Then let's get those horses." He said enthusiastically.

Renting undead horses cost only a handful of coins, and they made quick progress over the main highway, spending day and night in each other's company until at last they reached the gates of Arwintar.

"Here at last." Ainz said to them as they drew up to the mighty gates. "Vastly improved over the first time I saw them, they've gone from stone to reinforced adamantite latticework and heavy enchantments against external damage. An army attempting to get through here will pay a butcher's bill for the privilege."

Perse and Suadela were looking at him with sadness in their eyes. "Here is where we part… isn't it?" Perse said.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. You've got a man to find, and I've got one I want to see. So, I wish you both a fond farewell, you were wonderful traveling companions, perhaps I'll see you again some day, but until then, I wish you both good fortune." Ainz said with a sad but pleasant smile.

Impulsively, Perse and Suadela embraced him fiercely. They were very strong, but before he thought about how much, the embrace was broken, "Farewell to you, Herm, I hope you find everything you're looking for." Perse said with a sad smile on her face.

Suadela waved sadly, seemingly unable to speak, and the two women rode away into the city, it was a very crowded place, and they disappeared when they rounded a corner, though he followed them with his eyes for as long as he could before he took his undead horse to the nearest temple to return it.

That proved to be quite easy, the temple was massive, one of the largest in the Sorcerous Empire, but even if it weren't, well the capital now had street signs labeled everywhere, guards were quick to provide direction, public buildings handed out maps to tourists, and the many obvious converts with their personal symbols or uniforms were quick to help anyone seeking the main building of their faith in the city.

So he dropped his mount off, stepped out of sight, and used a gate that put him directly into Jircniv's private office.

When he stepped out of the gate, Jircniv practically fell out of his chair in shock.

Ainz laughed heartily at his response, and as Jircniv was fumbling for words and trying to decide how he should posture himself, either to stand, sit, or kneel, Ainz waved the entire thing away. "Relax, Jircniv. Everything is fine. Well… sort of fine, I guess?" Ainz half said, half asked himself as he shook his head with an amused expression on his face.

"Ah, is it?" Jircniv questioned, doubt on his face as the stranger stood in front of his desk.

"Yes, you probably don't recognize me, but… it's me, Ainz." Ainz said casually.

Jircniv was something of a genius, that much Ainz knew, not on par with Demiurge, Albedo, Pandora's Actor, or Renner. However he was an extraordinary mind nonetheless, and he adapted quickly. "Only he or someone serving him would show up the way you did, and nobody working for him would tell such an obvious lie so… I'm forced to believe you." Jircniv's voice became reasonable and calm settled over him. "But… how, why?" He asked in awed disbelief.

Ainz could only laugh in response as he pulled up a seat, and gestured for Jircniv to reclaim his own. "An experiment gone wrong, the goal was to turn me into an Angel Lord, the ability to shift form and powers accordingly would have been a great boon. As it happened, however, there was a… miscalculation, and I was turned to this august form you see before you." He smiled in a self-deprecating fashion and stopped talking as he folded his hands on the desk in front of him.

Jircniv was very quiet for a time. Finally he asked gravely, "How do you… feel? Is it permanent? What will you do now?"

Ainz chuckled, "Well, it isn't permanent, or rather, it would be if nothing were done, but as it happens I should have no trouble going back to my former self as soon as the materials are gathered and the item that turned me in the first place is remade. The materials were gathered recently, putting together the object itself they said would take a month. However they also said two weeks for materials and they were done in a handful of days. I suspect then that they were basing their estimate on the first production effort, as they now have some experience, I think it will actually be done much faster."

"I see." Jircniv said and he gave his lord a wry grin, "You always did have a knack for spotting talent."

"I did spot you, didn't I?" Ainz said as he smiled back, both accepting and returning the praise, which prompted Jircniv to let his mouth fall open in quiet surprise before he laughed in a friendly manner.

"As to how I feel, well, I have to say… it is a unique experience. As an undead my emotions were always in check, I had a range of emotions, but none of them were very deep or powerful, and if something did arise that made a feeling occur deeply, then it was quickly shut down and moderated. As a human, everything is so… sublime." He sighed joyfully.

"But also… painful, bitter, and beautiful." He said, and a sorrowful expression appeared on his face that he could not keep back.

"Sire?" Jircniv asked with concern, "Are you… alright?"

Ainz chewed on his tongue for a moment as he recollected the meeting with Neia.

"May I speak my heart to you, Jircniv, these are weighty thoughts." Ainz asked.

"Please do, I am proud to be in your confidence." Jircniv replied sincerely, he meant it. After years of rule by the Sorcerer King, having been given unbridled prosperity, security, stability, and wealth undreamt of, he no longer feared the wrath of his lord nearly so much as he feared the end of his reign.

Ainz explained the wellspring of emotion that struck him when he saw Neia, the nature of their discussion, and her statement that she did not seek immortality for herself, but had accepted that she would pass away. "It is a terrible thing," Ainz closed by saying, "that a father should have to bury his child, yet this is what I am confronted with. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday I will lay my Neia to rest, and go on without her."

Ainz looked at his former rival, his vassal, and over more recent years, a sort of friend. "Strange things, aren't we? On the Katze Plains I slew almost two hundred thousand people. Even now as a human, I feel no guilt, no sense of loss, it had to be done and so it was. Yet, as I think of Neia lying lifeless beneath my gaze, her hand cold and limp in mine, my beating heart tears itself asunder and I would do anything to prevent it."

"Such are humans, a single life we love, is worth more than a world of those we don't. We'd not be so violent I think, if only we could see the loss of any of a multitude, as we do the loss of one close to us." He let out a deep breath and said, "I know exactly how you feel, when it comes to what you think of in the future."

"You do?" Ainz asked.

Jircniv's eyes lowered, he looked down unhappily. "I lost a child once."

Ainz's eyes snapped up from his reverie. "I'm sorry." He meant it.

Jircniv nodded, "He was small, this was before your coming, I had many concubines then, and inevitably one fell pregnant. I was pleased, of course, but it wasn't to be. He was born, and perished almost immediately. There was not even time to summon someone to heal him from whatever caused him to die."

Jircniv clenched his fist a few times, cracking his knuckles as the memory of grief washed over him. "I know the pain you will experience, and I am sorry that you will endure it, I doubt loss to time is less painful than loss to disease or defect. All I can tell you is to enjoy what time you have with her. She is a truly remarkable woman."

"She is. And that is good advice." Ainz said patiently, "I will remember my time in this form when I am restored, but as to what I will do now, I have been treating this failure as a chance for a small vacation, traveling around a bit, having some amusement, I even had a pair of pleasant traveling companions for my journey here over the Central One road. By the way, I must praise you for your steady implementation of my policies and practices, you've done very well, Jircniv."

The emperor accepted the praise with aplomb, "Implementing it all was easy, inventing them all must have been the harder thing by far."

"We've made a good team." Ainz agreed. "I am proud to call you friend as well as subordinate. Feels good to be able to say and experience that wellspring in this form, I must admit." Ainz acknowledged candidly.

"We have, I couldn't agree more, with all of that." Jircniv said with equal candidness.

"Which brings me to the other matter, I thought I'd take a vacation here for awhile and enjoy your company for awhile, my first thought was to tour the entirety of the Sorcerous Empire… but I fear Draudillon might suspect she'd accidentally gotten drunk, Calca will insist on all manner of formal balls, Renner is…" Ainz gave a laugh of bemusement, "well, Renner is Renner, Zanac will insist on the same sort of thing as Calca, and if I go visit Zesshi she'll ask for a fight, and then insist I have sex with her." Ainz laughed and slapped his knee.

"She doesn't change much, does she?" Jircniv asked with a bemused expression.

"On that matter, no, no she does not." Ainz agreed, "And much as I love my home, vacations are supposed to be 'away' from the norm."

"Why not spend more time with Neia then, I'm sure she'd be overjoyed for a month of your company in this form." Jircniv suggested in passing.

"Because if I stay for long, I will grow weak, I'll refuse to change because I won't want to stop experiencing what I do when I'm with her. The human form is not without its merits, but my evenness and the advantages of the undead form are vital to the stability of the entire Sorcerous Empire. I have my duty, and it is to all before it is to any one, no matter how dearly loved they may be. So, she asked me to go, before she might have given in and asked me to stay. She knew I would give in, and wouldn't have it, so neither will I." Ainz said resolutely and with finality.

"I understand…" Jircniv said, "I always knew she was impressive, but that she could go that far… she is truly amazing."

Ainz didn't need to nod or speak to show that he agreed with that sentiment, his expression said it for him, a remarkable change in Jircniv's eyes, being able to read the expression of his formerly completely unfathomable lord.

The Imperial Governor perked up, "Still, you're welcome here as my honored guest, we can skip the formal balls and instead you can simply enjoy yourself as you see fit. I'll provide a carriage if you like, or, well I know your fondness for walking, but given the limitations of your time here, perhaps the carriage is the better choice. I assume you intend your identity to be anonymous?" Jircniv asked.

Ainz's face looked hopeful, 'If at all possible, yes. As a cover story, say I'm a soldier who once rendered an invaluable service to you which you at the time had no means to repay, and that you're doing so now as I've come into your realm."

"As expected of Your Majesty, you come up with a perfect cover story without even the slightest effort." Jircniv relaxed as he praised his liege. "We'll do exactly as you say, Sire. I'll provide you with the black card, it will identify you as a personal guest. Anything you acquire or request will be provided to you and billed directly to the palace, may I offer you a room here for the duration of your stay, or will you seek lodging elsewhere?"

"I'd be delighted to stay in your home." Ainz said appreciatively, "Now, I've interrupted your work, so why not summon a servant and have them take me to my quarters to be, and we'll have dinner later after I've settled in and gone to have a little fun." Ainz suggested in passing.

Jircniv rang for a servant immediately.

_...Nazarick…_

Vanysa and Demiurge each wore rings of sustenance to keep them going, unsurprisingly, each had independently come to the same notion and each was pleased that the other had done the same. In this way they worked, ripping the mana essence out of one human, demihuman, and heteromorphic magic caster after another with lethal, painful effect, and tossing aside the husks that remained. All that remained after each extraction was a near skeleton wrapped in wrinkled flesh aged far beyond its years. The demons were quite satisfied with the end result, which was a plasmic crystalline shape extracted from the Understone Imperial Province's deep chasm. Unlike the usual crystals, these were malleable, they could be shaped and each angle seemed to reshape the magics within and lend them to different effects when used, which in turn when etched with runes, were further affected.

With the smallest and most precision tools Demiurge and Vanysa could develop, they shaped the plasmic crystal to favor morphomantic support, and carefully applied tiny heat stones that they'd attached to tiny rods, and using this they could apply localized heat to even the smallest angle and harden the plasmic crystal into a permanent shape.

Hour after hour, day after day without sleep or rest or food or drink, the two hunched over their precision craft. The only times they stopped were when Albedo or Shalltear came by to check on their progress. The answers the two demon researchers gave were always the same:

"We are making progress, we will make more progress when we no longer have to stop making progress to explain that we are making progress." Thus echoing the frustration of workers throughout history and across worlds with anxious managers.

After two weeks of constant work, they finished and carried their work to the dwarven runecraft academy for their finest researchers to apply the runes developed under the leadership of Gondo Firebeard. Since the founding of the academy, a dozen new runes had been invented... or discovered, much debate ranged around that distinction. However what mattered to Demiurge and Vanysa was the way these could be applied in tandem through precise implementation to the now hardened mana crystal. The latest techniques of Runecraft allowed the application of five runes, however it required exactly identical etching with tools forged from exactly the same lumps of ore.

Therefore it was necessarily slow, with every tap of their implement being timed together by a dwarf lectern. The lectern read from a book at a precise cadence, and this cadence told the rest when to tap their tool to etch, a single misstep would render one of the rune's useless at best or actually disrupt all others at worst.

Tandem Rune Etching as a result, had become a highly honored profession above even the lone runesmith since it required such a unique set of additional skills. Small scale competitions had even developed where an audience would watch as teams of three to five dwarves under a single lectern would try to complete ever more complex rune etches, with the winners highly respected in dwarven society.

Thus the tools invented within Nazarick, the resources of the Understone Imperial Province, and the Azelian Dwarves' unique Runic skills, all joined together to create an entirely new and powerful mystical item.

It was however, a slow process to work on hardened plasmic crystal, that would take several days, so Demiurge and Vanysa treated it as a well deserved rest, and got no rest as they tore into one another, requiring the hotel they stayed at to replace several beds, and cracking the stone walls under the mountain with the fury of their lusts. Nothing, it seemed, excited either like the competitiveness and diligence of the other. Excellence, was their aphrodisiac.

The dwarves were excelling in their own right as well, and as this was the second attempt, using the same team as before, what had taken two weeks previously, was finished in only five days… with a little support from some additional rings of sustenance, which the five dwarf team was permitted to keep as a reward.

So it was that, far ahead of schedule, Demiurge reported success to the Sorcerer King, and he was welcomed back into the throne room by his assembled guardians.

"Did you… have a pleasant journey, my lord?" Albedo asked demurely.

"I did, thank you for taking care of everything for me, I could not have done as I did, without such marvelous and loyal servants as yourselves." Ainz replied.

"Are you going to, you know, go back?" Shalltear asked hopefully.

Ainz chuckled, "Yes, I am. Much more research will be necessary before I attempt such an experiment again." He glanced quickly to the two demons that hung their heads in shame, "Please don't look that way." Ainz said to the pair, "I got to truly feel the love I have for all of you, unbounded by the restrictions of my undead body. That in and of itself is an unlooked for success."

A memory suddenly snapped into place for Ainz, a memory of the last time he'd expressed love for them all in Albedo's presence, and having had to confine her after she tried to assault him, and he let his gaze linger for a moment on her. To his shock, she retained a calm, demure expression, save for a welling of tears in her eyes, "Thank you, my lord, we love you also. The finest of us, the one who stayed, and who we will always… always stay beside in turn."

Where his gaze had first turned to her in concern, he was now looking at her with affection and appreciation. Within her mind the words of his daughter still hammered away at her, '...Do that, and you will regret it. ...cannot come from manipulation… ...He is not ready…' Albedo remembered those words. Although she suspected part of the impact had come from the evangelist voice, as she turned them over and over in her head and compared her utterly lackluster results in the past, to the fond affection he'd patiently showed to her when she had disguised herself as 'Perse' and been a friendly companion instead of a would be paramour, she saw a clear difference.

"I suppose…. It is time for me to go back, but there is one thing I'd like to do before then." Ainz said quietly.

"My lord?" Cocytus asked.

"I want to visit the mausoleum, where the statues of my friends reside." Ainz said in a soft spoken voice of the sort they seldom heard.

As he walked, they moved to follow, "No, I want to say some things, I don't need an escort."

They hesitated, then relented. He expected Shalltear or Albedo to object most strongly, but neither did. And though for a moment neither moved, Shalltear suddenly spoke up. "My lord, if it is alright with you, I'd like to visit the empire, they have a marvelous academy there specializing in the arts, and I'd very much like to pay a visit, and learn something new."

"As you wish, take a few weeks, enjoy yourself, but be ready to return when I call." He said, at once surprised and pleased by her sudden interest… and just a trifle suspicious after the noodle incident, but nonetheless he granted her permission with a warm and encouraging voice. "I wish you luck and a great experience." He added.

"As you wish, my lord, and thank you." She said sweetly and giving a backward wave, she stepped through a gate and was gone.

He went alone a moment later, or so he thought. Albedo took the item from Demiurge and Vanysa, praising their hard work, and then they also went back to their work. Then she herself quietly slipped away, going after her lord. She watched her beloved Ainz move from one statue to the next, promising that if they were out there, he'd find them. He talked about all the things they'd done together, remembering little details and stories, and he let that happiness in all its bittersweetness wash over him like the waves of an ocean.

"My friends." He said those two words with a sense of bitter irony. "I don't know if you're here or not, I don't, if you are, I'll find you I swear it. But… how do I say this to you?" He took a deep breath as he looked up and down the long rows of those who had left the game before him. "I think, I think I need to start accepting that maybe you aren't. I need to believe you're here somewhere, but will I need that for another hundred years? Another thousand? I'll look after this place for you, I'll make this world into something you'd be proud of." He clenched his hand into a fist and his lip turned up in a snarl, "Even if I have to drag some of them kicking and screaming away from the past, over and over again. So that if you ever do appear, you'll be glad you arrived, and if you don't, when I one day reveal your happiness as my driving force, an entire world will celebrate that you lived."

He felt at a loss for words after that, but only for a bit, as if he were waiting for his lost friends to give his statues voices to speak to him. "In the meantime though, well, I've found a lot of great things here. Good allies, even… though they could never replace you, the occasional friend. Also, believe it or not, a daughter. Yeah, I know, you don't have to say anything, but you'd be impressed. She'd have made a fine guild member had she been one of you. I don't know how I'll cope with losing her, but maybe learning to live with losing you all is a start to that."

He went to the statue of Tabula Smaragdina and reached out to touch it. "You said something to me a long time ago that I never forgot. That people meet and people part, and everyone we meet leaves a piece of themselves inside of us, and when they're gone, that piece can cut deep or comfort. I never forgot that. But you know, until going from undead to human, I never really knew what to do with that memory, I didn't really understand what you meant at the time. Now, I think I'm starting to get an idea about it." He smiled up at the statue, "Oddly enough, a few girls I met on the road in this form, kind of helped me out with that, I doubt I'll ever see them again, but I think it helped me to understand not just myself, but also the daughter of Peroroncino… and yours as well. I'm sorry I meddled with your creation, I shouldn't have done that, but maybe I'll have to start doing things differently with her, instead of just pushing her away every time. That can't feel good."

He let his touch of the statue slip away and his hand fall back to his side. "Thank you for listening, I guess I'd better get this over with, it hurt like hell last time, I can't imagine it will feel better this time." He said to the silent stone and stepped away, looking at all of them, but lingering for a longer time on that of the creator of his Guardian Overseer.

Albedo felt the long familiar urge as she watched and listened… jump him, take him, but as that urge rose up, she held it in check. 'No.' She thought to herself, 'I will do it right this time.'

So she watched as he lingered, and it was when he stood in front of her creator's statue, Tabula Smaragdina, and finished his lonely monologue, that he realized he was no longer alone. She didn't wait for him to call for her, she stepped from hiding.

"I said I did not need an escort." Ainz said in a mild rebuke. 'Now? Now she catches up with me? Strange that she never showed up during my trip, I wonder if Neia misdirected her to give me some privacy along the way? When I next see her, I'll have to ask what she said to convince Albedo and Shalltear not to chase me down.' He thought to himself as he rebuked the guardian.

It stung a little, but Albedo walked slowly forward with her hands submissively in front of her, and her eyes slightly downcast, ashamed of being caught this way. "I know, my lord. I didn't come to escort you. I came because for you to be alone in pain, is painful to me. I remember them as well, he…" she gestured to the statue he now stood in front of, "was my creator, and he abandoned me as he did you. I often wondered if I did something wrong, if I was a disappointment. Had you gone too, I surely would have gone mad with despair. Yet you saved me, and all of us by staying. So as you remained, how can I say I love you, if I leave you alone in turn?" She asked, drawing much closer.

Ainz looked at her in silence, rethinking her words, she'd never spoken to him like this before. "Very well." He said.

So they remained in amiable silence in the empty hall, until she reached out and took his hand.

"Are you ready, my lord?" She asked hesitantly.

He looked at her quizzically. He expected her to ask for a child first, he expected her to attempt to initiate sex while he could still have it. What she'd asked, was not what he expected.

She smiled regretfully as if reading his mind, "When you're ready too, my lord, I will be also. I can wait, and you're worth waiting for."

"Thank you." Ainz replied in a tone that spoke of a small amount of embarrassment.

She answered his thanks with a hopeful smile and held the item in front of him.

He spent several minutes on the floor in absolute agony, filling the empty mausoleum with his screams of pain as his human body was elevated and his flesh was torn away, his body stretched out, his great red orb was restored to view, and his organs crumbled away vanished as if they were dust in the wind. Albedo clung to him as hard as she could, sitting on the floor through the nightmare of her beloved's agony as he writhed in her arms, until the screams stilled and she felt the familiar touch of bones in her hands.

He finally stood up, and reached down to offer his skeletal hand to her, she took it, and he helped her up. "You are yourself again, my lord?" She asked weakly.

"I was myself before as well, but yes, I am. And before you ask, yes, I remember it all, though I may not 'feel' to the same extent as I did, I remember what it felt like to do so. Thank you, for staying with me in those final minutes of my humanity." He said gently.

Albedo covered his skeletal hand with hers, "You stayed with us in the final minutes, so I will stay with you forever." She said gave him a loving smile that lit up the dim mausoleum. "Now, unless I miss my guess, you'd like to see your daughter again?"

His eyes could no longer widen, but he was nonetheless surprised by the sudden insightfulness of thought of this sort. "Yes, I would… then after that, we'd better get back to work."

"As you wish, My Lord." Albedo said politely, and she fell into step beside him as they headed back to the throne room, but neither let go of the other's hand as they walked, and Ainz reflected privately, that limiter or not… that felt quite good.

She smiled to herself, but did not squeeze his hand, lest it make him anxious and cause him to withdraw his touch. Her time with him in her disguise had been brief but useful, perhaps he didn't 'see' her in front of him in those twilight hours around the fire as they talked. This however, was nice, and she thought to herself, 'Some day… some day you will truly see, and when that day comes, I'll tell you about the time I spent as Perse.' She then suspended that thought for a moment, and then turned it on its head, 'Or then again… maybe I won't.'

-end story-

**AN: This has been a commissioned piece, thank you to my patron, it has been a pleasure and I hope you found this story to be worthy every penny and more besides. :) **


	14. Epilogue

Chapter 14: Epilogue

_…Manor of Neia Baraja…The Day of Ainz's Turning…_

Skana was waiting at home when Neia came through the door. She was about to speak when she saw that her beloved's face was red and still wet from tears. She stood immediately from where she'd been seated, set aside her book, and walked over to Neia as fast as her feet could carry her. Neia fell into her arms and embraced her tightly. Given her incredible strength even in her thirties, it was only a reflection of her lover and her wife as a peer, that kept the bones of Skana the Bold from cracking under the force.

"My love, Neia, what's wrong?" Skana asked softly.

"Lots of things, nothing, everything. I went to see father, he's… very much himself. The things he said, it wasn't bad, but it was beautiful enough that it made me sad too. I didn't want it to end." She leaned back from her embrace and held the green eyed woman's shoulders. "Now I'm home, holding you, and I don't want this to end either."

Skana laughed and slipped in closer, she kissed Neia's forehead comfortingly, "You're a very greedy woman."

"Maybe just a little. But times like that, and times like this, make me glad we live in such a beautiful world." Neia whispered into her wife's ear.

"We'll I'm glad that you're glad, but don't get too comfortable, because we have to leave again tomorrow, we're going to visit the Beastmen Kingdom, and make the world even better." Skana said with a bright smile.

_…Imperial School for the Arts…Two weeks Later…_

Shalltear sat in the academy's art studio surrounded by various students. 'Surrounded' was indeed the appropriate word, as they had given her a very wide berth, putting several feet of empty space around her so that she was near the center of a circle while she sat at her canvas. At the front of the class on a small platform, lying down on a couch was a naked vampire bride. She'd 'volunteered' the female as a model, and the instructor could find no good reason… or no courage, to refuse her.

Ironically given the distance they'd given to her, eyes from around the class that should have been focused on their own work, were instead focused upon her, she worked carefully with her brush, paying no mind to those she deemed lesser beings. The vampire bride remained perfectly still as her mistress had bade her, it was far from the worst command she'd ever been given.

As she worked, the Lady Shalltear could not help but find the entirety of the activity to be… thoroughly erotic, the heedlessness of the model who lay bare for use yet remained untouched by anything but the eyes of the students, the gentle touch of brush to canvas that created life, or its likeness, where only emptiness had existed before. 'I wonder if this is how the supreme ones felt when they created us…' She thought to herself, only to have her thoughts interrupted when the instructor leaned over behind her.

"Remarkable work, Lady Shalltear, you show real promise at the art." He said. Two weeks earlier he'd feared he might have to levy false praise to keep himself safe, yet to his surprise as well as his relief, she'd proven to be an apt pupil and was continuing to make rapid progress. 'What will she produce in another hundred years?' He wondered to himself, regretting that he would not live to see it.

_…Palace of Arwintar…_

Jircniv's short few weeks with Ainz as a human left their mark on him, the lord he served seemed no less powerful, and save for the more emotive behavior in general, as if every sensation of touch or taste or smell were entirely new, which they might very well have been as far as what he knew of the Sorcerer King… what he found was that when the lord spoke, he kept the power, force, and wisdom that seemed to embody him. Whether they were talking of idle things as they rode on horseback while hunting, or whether they were simply trying out some new dish a chef had prepared, the only thing to truly change in how he saw the Sorcerer King was the race itself. When he spoke of ideas, they were often good ones, when he critiqued policy, his critique was as sound as when he'd been undead. 'Whatever the power of his magic, the power of his mind is where he finds his greatest triumphs.' The emperor reflected.

The way the Sorcerer King spoke of the warrior pope had been eye opening, even shocking in a manner of speaking, but nothing about it had so shocked him as the realization that he'd had the day after the Sorcerer King had left his palace for his own home.

"He'll bury us all. His daughter, her wife, their children… to be our king forever, he must lose forever…" He whispered to the empty office, and for his bloody rival, his ruler, his friend, Jircniv did what Ainz would never be able to truly do for himself, he wept.

**AN: I hope you enjoyed this story, I know it is somewhat bittersweet, and I hope you drew out all the richness of the emotional experience that I tried to imbue into it. Life is one great big story, and should be lived in such a way that it is one worth telling, this doesn't only mean grand adventures, it means the richness of what people share with one another, how we grow, learn, and come to understand one another. I wanted to show that here, if on a relatively small scale compared to my largest work, and I think I've done that. If you agree, or disagree, I'd love to hear from you. Again, thank you to my patron for commissioning this work, it has been a pleasure and a privilege to write it for you.**


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